


tell me it gets easier

by paintedviolet, timelxrd



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s12e03 Orphan 55, F/F, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Rewrite, Ryan is oblivious, Unresolved Sexual Tension, a little fluff, as a treat, gay idiots, graham gets a midnight snack, obviously, take note chibs, thasmin, thirteen gets the hug she deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 38,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22963618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedviolet/pseuds/paintedviolet, https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelxrd/pseuds/timelxrd
Summary: "The Doctor wilts under the realisation that she’d caused this; she’d avoided them for long enough for frustration to build and build like a dredged up water pipe, ready to burst. The bolts are loosening and water has started seeping through the wallpaper.""She thinks kings could kneel for a gaze like that. All sorrow and sympathy, a readiness to fix the unfixable. Her hearts break so much that it seeps into her stare, shards like the gold in the green. Catching her eye keeps Yaz fixed in it – she is suspended there, counting every golden crack in the quiet that passes. Unable to do anything but acknowledge it, confront the sheer power of her sadness."[A rewrite of 12x3: Orphan 55, told from both perspectives]
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 14
Kudos: 100





	1. thirteen

**Author's Note:**

> This was an absolute JOY to work on and I have been BUZZING to share it with you guys! 
> 
> I would highly recommend listening to this brilliant playlist while reading: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5AY58v0YtMWtjAl5r2Ph4A 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Exiting the damaged vehicle only once the rest of the group have left, the pressure of the murky outside air is the first thing to garner the Doctor’s attention. On reflex, she takes a gasping inhale, grateful for the device pumping oxygen through the bridge of her nose and keeping her head above water. 

The Doctor is the last to step out. When Yaz glances back in the hopes of catching her eye, she turns to take in their environment instead, seeking moving forms through the mist and the fog. Dust and gravel seeps into the seams of her boots and the ridges in her soles, turning tan brown to grey. She watches the transformation if only so she doesn’t have to look up and into three questioning gazes. 

On the other hand, Ryan seems suitably distracted by his new acquaintance, so her anxieties only cater to two thirds. 

“The tunnel entrance is just past this ridge,” Kane informs from the front of the group, gun steady and unyielding and disappointing in her arms. 

The Doctor hates guns. 

“Benni? Benni, where are you?” Vilma cries a few paces from the vehicle, the rest of her sentence muffled beneath Yaz’s palm in seconds. 

It’s too late, though, and when she circles on the spot, the Doctor is unable to put a number to the amount of Dregs closing in on them from afar, the _thud, thud, thud_ of their clawed feet no match to the rhythm of frantic heartbeats resonating through the group. 

“Everyone, back to the truck, _now!”_

When her fist connects to the glass panelling beneath her, the emergency hatch falls open to the chime of her oxygen canister dropping to the next level down in its settings. 

_You get one O2 canister each._ **_Conserve it_ ** _. Green is good, orange is bad, red’s dead._

No dying yet, then. That’s good. 

Kane’s words echo in her thoughts as they slip free from the vehicle and trudge forth through dirt and remains of what might’ve been grass and rolling fields once, she theorises. 

They’re running and breathless and adrenalised when Hyph3n’s scream echoes into the vast, open terrain, followed by the snarling presence of the creatures they’re desperately trying to avoid. 

The hatch is easy to find and inside the tunnels, the Doctor glances between the rest of the group’s oxygen supplies to find the same orange light. “We’re using too much oxygen.”

 _Please locate breathable air in order to recharge supply._

When heaving breaths are no longer the only sounds in the underground system, something glinting in the light of flickering bulbs captures her attention before she can find refuge with the rest of the group. 

“What is it?” Yaz’s voice is hoarse with exertion and loud in her ear while the Doctor studies and translates and reels with newly revealed information, lips parted around a silent gasp. 

_It’s the future._ “Nothing, keep moving,” she murmurs instead, hand at Yaz’s back guiding her away. 

But Yaz doesn’t give up, and when her torch shines over the familiar language, the Doctor bites harder, words a whispered shout. “I said it’s _nothing_ , Yaz, keep _moving._ We don’t have time to linger, Yaz, _please_.”

Ignoring her insistence, Yaz steps up to sweep dust and rubble from the sign drilled into weathered bricks. 

There’s a beat where the Doctor can _hear_ the cogs turning in her friend’s head, lips pursing and features falling. 

Before the inevitable. 

“Doctor, that looks like Russian.”

“Novosibirsk,” the Doctor concedes, teeth gritted while the new information dawns. “It’s a Siberian underground station.” 

“This —” Yaz pauses to take a slow inhale, lungs working a mile a minute and resonating, loud and clear, in the Doctor’s ears. “This is Earth.”

When she meets her gaze for the first time that day, the Doctor’s stomach surges with guilt and shame and another precious gasp of oxygen is wasted on the empty air. 

“It can’t be Earth, this is nothing like it,” Yaz insists, brows pinched and voice pleading. “No, no, no.”

A low growl stops any more discussion in its tracks, and briskly, the Doctor nudges Yaz towards the rest of the group to follow closely behind. 

“Yaz,” Vilma whispers once they’ve crouched behind a row of barrels and storage, and the Doctor tunes in from her place kneeling at Yaz’s side with a frown. “Promise me you’ll run.” 

“You can’t hide by yourself,” Yaz implores, clutching at her canister if just to hide its blinking light from the Doctor’s gaze. It flickers between orange and red where it’s hidden inside her jacket. 

“Run,” Vilma continues, straightening up. “Stay alive.”

Catching on, Yaz reaches out a hand only to be met by empty space where she slumps, distraught. “Vilma!” 

Vilma storms with a cry into waiting growls and claws and salivating teeth. 

The Doctor can feel the way Yaz trembles at her side, a silent scream on her tongue as she bears witness to yet another life lost the Doctor could’ve, _should’ve_ saved.

“Yaz, come on. We have to keep going,” she grinds out, clasping at Yaz’s hand so she can all but drag her from their hiding place. “ _Yaz._ ”

“She just _died_ for us,” Yaz’s voice echoes, shock-stricken and forlorn, setting the Doctor’s chest alight with a dull ache while she positions herself behind her, urging her forwards. “We should’ve saved her, Doctor.” 

When Yaz gasps upon entrance to the Dreg’s nest, the Doctor pins it down to fear rather than the red, glowing light now emitting from Yaz’s canister. 

“Something feels wrong,” she whispers in the doorway, glancing over the rubble and flames illuminating the room. There’s a Dreg standing dormant at the other end of the room, where the rest of the group have already toed past silently. “There’s something about the Dregs I’m missing.”

Yaz’s lack of response leaves the Doctor frowning, but oblivious, she continues on. “They adapt to everything which attacks them until nothing is a threat. They breathe in carbon dioxide, they can live perfectly within this environment and can survive radiation,” she lists, reaching out when Yaz trips up on a loose pipe. “Ugh! This is so annoying. I hate not knowing, Yaz. Especially when it’s _right_ in front of my face.” 

When Yaz stumbles again, into the Doctor’s chest this time, she breathes a quiet _oof_. “Careful, Yaz.”

_Oxygen supply level: 1%. You must find breathable air immediately._

The Doctor glances down at her wrist, brows pinching. “Wait — that’s not mine.” 

Somewhere in the far reaches of her brain, a penny drops. 

“Yaz?” The weight against her chest increases and a head falls against her shoulder as Yaz’s legs give way beneath her. “ _Yaz?”_

_Oxygen supply level: 1% You must find breathable air immediately._

“Right, yes. Okay. Don’t panic, Doctor,” the Doctor whispers as she lowers her friend to the floor, arms curled securely under her arms. She spares another glance to her almost empty oxygen unit before sinking to her knees with a grunt to take her pulse. “Respiratory bypass system, right? That can work.” 

“Stay with me, Yaz,” she prays silently, then straightens her posture to take a long, lingering inhale, the last of her oxygen seeping into her lungs a second before she presses her lips to Yaz’s, open-mouthed and desperate but in an _entirely_ different manner than she’d prefer. 

Not that she’s thought of kissing Yaz before. 

The oxygen dispels from her throat for a count of four seconds until Yaz gasps, instinct driving her to grip at the lapels of the Doctor’s coat. 

“We have to move, there’s —” The Doctor pauses as her respiratory bypass system kicks into gear, winding her already protesting lungs. “No time. Can’t — breathe. C’mon.”

Staggering to two sets of feet, the Doctor’s arm sweeps around Yaz’s waist and they walk as though moulded together. “Need t’get to th’dormant Dreg,” she hisses when, eyes wide, Yaz stumbles alongside her, gripping haplessly at the material of the Doctor’s coat. 

“We—” Yaz wheezes, eyes glossy. “Need — to get — _closer_?” 

_Six more steps._

_Five. Five more steps._

“Four,” the Doctor bristles, using her remaining strength to draw Yaz in front of her, but she relents, sending her a weakened glare. “ _Move,_ Yaz. You need —” another staggering step, knees giving way and black dots coating her vision like an old fashioned film reel has been set up behind her eyes. “Oxygen more than me.”

“No, no, no,” Yaz slumps against her side, feet rendered useless when pressure blossoms around her skull enough for veins in her temples to purge at her skin. 

“Respiratory —” the Doctor grunts, sagging with the weight of two exhausted bodies when her knees hit the ground with a resonating thud. When Yaz pitches forward, head-first towards the solid ground, it takes all she has to scoop her lead-like form back up, clutching her to her chest as she shuffles forward on scuffed knees. “— bypass, Yaz.”

“Yaz?” she echoes when Yaz’s head lolls back into her collarbone, jaw slack while precious oxygen slips free. 

_Three more steps. Equivalent to six more crawls, Doctor. Come on._

Saving the breath she’d usually utilise for a one-sided conversation, the Doctor leads on, dragging her limbs with each weary movement until finally, clawed feet are within reach. 

Standing up, however, is a whole other obstacle when she can _hear_ the blood pumping, hard and fast and frantic through her vessels, oxygen-starved and depleted. Her ankle twists on the first attempt to lift it from her crawling, crouched position, straining unpleasantly under their combined weight. 

Slipping her palms under Yaz’s arms, she all but launches her up into a standing position on the next attempt, following the motion to sweep an arm around her waist once she springs up to stand herself. “Please don’t let me be wrong,” she hisses, cradling a palm under Yaz’s chin to lift her head just millimetres from the Dreg standing, motionless and dormant before them. 

Seconds last hours when no response is elicited, and the Doctor can feel the pulsing golden tendrils spreading from the tips of her fingers an instant before she decides she might have to give up this time. The hatch is too far away and there’s _no way_ either of them would last long enough to breathe fresh oxygen into their lungs again, respiratory bypass be damned. 

She imagines Ryan and Graham, so far away from home, left behind in the wake of another loss. 

She imagines Najia, picking up her phone and falling to her knees with a cry. 

She imagines the Master, laughing and grinning in manic glee. 

_Oxygen supply refilling. 20%._

In her ear, Yaz gasps, stomach rising and falling in quick succession under the Doctor’s clasped palms. 

She blinks, once, twice, three times before Yaz stumbles back a step to switch their positions, dragging the bedraggled Time Lord in front of the Dreg to return the miraculous favour. 

The first flood of oxygen to her lungs sends the Doctor staggering, palm clutching around her throat to ease the rush there. She turns, back to the Dreg, to glance over her friend’s heaving form. “I’m _so_ glad I was right. That would’ve been really embarrassing otherwise.” 

Then, when Yaz reaches out a steadying hand which the Doctor catches with her own, she frowns. “You should’ve _told me_ you were running low, Yaz.”

“ _You_ should’ve saved your oxygen,” Yaz hisses, lurching forward when dizziness sends her legs wobbling like a deer on ice. The Doctor is there to catch her, though, like always, cinching Yaz’s arm around her shoulders while her own loops around her waist. “You almost _died_ just to save me.”

At their backs, a low growl and a snarl echo into the nest and the Doctor’s eyes turn as wide as saucers.“Running now, arguing later.” 

“Sounds good to me,” Yaz gasps, hand clasped tight in the Doctor’s own when they scamper from the room and into a lengthy stairwell. 

The dreg is hot on their heels until sprinting, gun in hand, Kane sweeps past them to aim and shoot. “Join the others. I’ve got this one, and tell Bella I’m sorry.” 

“Kane!” the Doctor shouts, but it’s too late. Charging forward, Kane calls out for the creature before she can hesitate. 

A tug at her hand forces her back into action, and suddenly the staircase doesn’t seem such big a feat. She turns to Yaz before they ascend, though, lips parting as if to speak but no words come forth. She settles for shaking her head quickly when Yaz meets her gaze in question, resettling her thoughts with a squeeze to the fingers clasped tight and secure around her own without necessity.

 _That was too close_. 

The smell of burning is the first thing to assault her senses when they make it back to the resort’s ruined bar, and, making her excuses, the Doctor joins Bella to find and distract the alpha of the Dreg’s group rather than sticking to Yaz’s side. She’s done enough damage to her today already. 

She doesn’t miss the crestfallen expression on her face when she’s sent off with Ryan like a feline left outside in the rain.

It’s all the more reason to draw her gaze away until they’re deposited back to her ship, safe but uneasy; unharmed but exhausted. 

“When did you know?” Yaz pipes up, voice catching on the last word. 

Under her scrutiny, the Doctor forces herself to meet bloodshot eyes, but not for long. _Theorising doesn’t count as knowledge, right?_ she wants to ask, shame tearing at her gut. But this time around, apparently, she’s so distracted she’ll settle for cowardice. “Just after you did.” 

Three expectant heads turn her way, then hang in relative shame. 

Glancing between them, the Doctor swallows thickly around an unexpected lump in her throat. 

Ryan looks like he might cry. 

Graham’s still reeling with the revelation — of all three, he seems most oblivious, most in denial, most shocked. 

Yaz is still seeking out her runaway eyes. 

“Look,” she starts, because there really isn’t anywhere else to begin. “I know what you're thinking. But it's one possible future. It's one timeline. You want me to tell you that Earth's going to be okay?” 

The question is asked in rhetoric, but it doesn’t stop all three looking to her for an answer. “Because I can't. In your time, humanity is busy arguing over the washing-up while the house burns down.” 

Her hands are moving now, fingers clasping empty air and elbows jutting. If she were in a crowd, she’d have knocked three people out by now and started heading for a fourth. “Unless people face facts and change, catastrophe is coming. But it's not decided. You know that. The future is not fixed. So, be the best of humanity.” 

She thinks of a similar scenario, where fires burn and all hope is lost, an entire civilisation set to suffer under the weight of a yet unknown secret. 

_Pulverised? Burned? Nuked? All of the above. Everyone killed. Everything burned._

Head reeling, the Doctor loiters and fidgets at the console edge until, weary and exhausted and chattering between themselves, her friends disappear into the corridors. 

Fingers raw with the curse of her fidgeting hands mixed with the wearing instruments of her desktop, the Doctor finds her way through the corridors an unknown length of time later, dusted boots dragging. 

Hesitating at the door to the communal kitchen, sensitive hearing picks up on conspiratory murmurings, but before she can let the occurrence dwell, she toes past the door and raises her head, the smile on her face so falsely chipper her mind starts to laugh, loud and clear behind her eyes. 

“What’s up, gang?” 

“Oh, we’re just discussing the best flavour of —” 

“Ice cream.”

“Crisps.”

Wilting and suspicious, the Doctor leans in the doorway, trying her best to train the hurt from her voice. “Right.” 

A presence perched on her right shoulder, with red skin and a crooked tongue, tells her she deserves this — after all, who’s to blame them for speculating when every time they ask a question, prying or gentle, she pushes them away?

Another resides on the opposite shoulder, with white wings and a glowing golden halo. It’s not their fault. They haven’t dealt with the level of loss still haunting the very bones she shifts and strains to carry on each day. They just don’t _know._

“You can join us, if you like,” Yaz breathes, coaxing racing thoughts back to a slow jog. Despite the lingering frustration to her tone, which has built, weighty and suffocating since they first set off this morning, her eyes still only bloom with concern the Doctor does not deserve. 

“I was actually coming to find you,” the Doctor admits, shoving her hands into her pockets and moving in a slow rock of her toes. “You mind popping to the med-bay with me? Quick check-over?” 

“She’s got a point, mate,” Ryan notes when Yaz hesitates, choosing to eye the Doctor in barely-concealed hurt over replying. “I mean, you _did_ almost suffocate to death today.”

“ _Ryan,”_ chiding, Graham warns. “A bit more sympathy wouldn’t go amiss.”

“Fine, I’ll come,” Yaz breathes, unusually slow in her move to stand. The Doctor can spot the signs of dizziness from a mile off, instinct driving her to reach out until a flash of reluctant deep brown irises renders the action worthless. Yaz’s voice is stronger than her own. “So long as you get checked out too.” 

Perhaps she does deserve a taste of her own medicine, after all, she admits to herself when they slip into the corridor, hands stuffed deep into her pockets to save herself the undeserving hold she desires so gutturally from the woman at her side. 

They’re dancing around each other like perfectly matched predators and the Doctor’s never felt so openly at fault in centuries. “How’re you feeling?” 

“Bit headachey, but nothing rest won’t fix,” Yaz replies in earnest, the honesty to her response an indirect call-out to the false smile still clinging stealthily to the Doctor’s lips. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t realise sooner — about your oxygen levels,” she murmurs with sincerity when the weight of guilt fissures at her resolve. She spares a quick, fleeting glance her way as the familiar white door to the medical bay comes into view, a contrast to the usual blue and gold of her home — _their home?_ After today — no, scrap that, after the last few _weeks_ , she doubts they still think so. “Sometimes I get so lost up here —” She slips a hand from her pocket to tap at her temple, once, twice, then lets it press flush against the door, pushing forth. “ — I don’t see what’s happening right in front of me.” 

“Moreso than usual today,” Yaz whispers, unbidden and _accidental_ , perhaps? — But the Doctor catches on, no doubt, recalling her words from earlier in the day with regretful ease; something about family disputes and passive-aggressive discussion. 

She could acknowledge it, could fissure and thud and break down those walls and give herself over like a mayfly at the end of its five-minute lifespan. 

But, with a twitch of her lips, she leaves it off for another mayfly. 

Can time be measured in mayflies?

S _talling, stalling, stalling._

“Take a seat,” she instructs gently, motioning to a bed straight from the ward of a hospital, white linen crisp and folded neatly in perfect harmony with the rest of the painfully-organised, clinical room.

If Yaz expects her to root through drawers for medical supplies, her surprise doesn’t show when the Doctor draws a stethoscope and a pressure monitor from the seemingly endless expanse of space hidden away inside her pockets. 

“Up,” she motions when Yaz lingers at the side of the bed as though expecting something — _oh,_ a response to her earlier quip, perhaps? 

Taking a breath, the Doctor steps forward into Yaz’s space when the younger woman perches watchfully on the edge of the bed. “I’m just going to check your hearts — _heart_ ,” she corrects around a gulp, mind drifting momentarily to her revived counterpart and his cunning ruse. “And make sure everything’s in order. Standard practice.”

Fitting the instrument into both ears before raising it to press, light and careful but _cold_ against Yaz’s dark skin, she flinches at the sound of her resulting hiss. “Sorry. Bit cold. Should’ve warned you.” 

“Doctor,” Yaz murmurs, the sound sharp and rumbled in the Doctor’s ears while she listens in to a relievedly regular pulse of thuds. 

“Sorry! I’ll be as quick as I can, promise.” She moves the instrument further up her torso, gaze averted to ensure privacy. “Did you know the first stethoscope invented was made of wood? I love wood. Sonic doesn’t.” 

“ _Doctor,”_ Yaz tries again, words falling in a frustrated grumble from her lips. 

“Alright, alright, I’m done. Your heart is perfectly fine. Oxygen deprivation can sometimes lead to a risk of — whatshisface — _tachycardia._ That’s the one. Sounds like an awful postcard shop,” the Doctor quips, pulling away and letting the apparatus come to rest around her neck. She’d picked up on the quickening beats of her heart even before she’d finished her examination, so when she assuages her tone, she turns to study the sheets as though inspecting for dust. 

Flitting in panic, she catches sight of the scuffed material hugging her knees and her brows furrow in silent concern. 

Anything not to look up and risk everything. 

“Doctor, _look at me.”_

She can’t. She won’t. She mustn’t.

Her fingers clasp and unclasp around the sleeves of her coat, anxiety cursing in a torrent through her system and plaguing her organs in their wake. 

She can hear Yaz’s breaths now, can imagine the frown on her face, unsuited, unwelcome. “Please.”

Glossy emerald meets pleading brown. 

The Doctor pauses, fidgeting in place. Then, finding nothing to distract herself with, she waits. 

And waits. 

“Talk to me,” she hears her say, like so many before, and her eyes close to battle those memories away. 

_You talk all the time but you never_ **_say_ ** _anything._

It’s too much. 

“Yaz,” she starts, a thousand different facts about space, three dad jokes and half a compliment on the backpedal. 

But there’s no time to justify herself before Yaz; brave, determined, concerned Yaz, halts her in her tracks. 

No time to back out now. 

“No,” Yaz counters abruptly, tamed hair falling over her shoulders when she shakes her head, steadfast. “Don’t explain this away. Please. We _miss_ you, Doctor. We don’t know what’s happened. Is it something we did?” 

Oh. 

**_Oh._ **

The Doctor’s eyes grow wide when she takes in the new, albeit false theory her friends have wound together to explain her reluctance to share; reluctance to confide; reluctance to _talk_ in any sense of the word. 

“No,” she interrupts before Yaz can dwell any further, feet drawing closer without her knowledge. She wants to reach out, to touch the hand curled so tightly around the edge of the medial cot, to soothe away the _thudthud_ echoing through her ears from the woman sitting before her. But she isn’t deserving. “It’s nothing to do with you three.” 

Yaz’s response is instantaneous. Her hearts sink just as quickly. “Then why can’t you talk to us?”

Fight or flight?

Fight. 

“Because it’s nothing to do with you!” 

She doesn’t realise her voice has raised until after the words have left her mouth.

Yaz’s jaw is set and working and her eyes are wide and hurt when the Doctor next sees through a sheen of red. 

“Sorry,” she omits, tone lesser. “Sorry, that wasn’t fair.” She reaches up, dragging a hand down her face and taking a steadying inhale. “It’s not your fault.”

“No, it’s not,” Yaz agrees, frustration still coiled tightly around each syllable. The Doctor wilts under the realisation that she’d caused this; she’d avoided them for long enough for frustration to build and build like a dredged up water pipe, ready to burst. The bolts are loosening and water has started seeping through the wallpaper. “But we’re still _here_. I’m still here, Doctor. It just… doesn’t feel like you are.”

Distrust tastes foul in the air around her. The Doctor closes her mouth, ducking her head, shoulders hunching. 

She was never very good at pipework. 

“Can you at least talk to us? Let us know what’s hurting you?” 

Habit takes over where courage fades. “You wouldn’t under—” 

“Don’t,” Yaz cuts her off, arms folded, and the Doctor’s facade withers further. “Doctor, _don’t_.”

Drawing her sleeves over capable hands, the Doctor’s gaze flits home to deep brown. “It’s — it’s hard to explain, when you haven’t lived through the things I have; when you haven’t _seen_ what I’ve seen,” she finally indulges, clenching her jaw when her breathing falters. “I’ve witnessed so much, Yaz. Loss, pain, regret… ” she pauses to swallow thickly, throat bobbing with the action. “ _Love_. You couldn’t possibly understand.”

“Try me.” A police officer’s persistence wears her once collected nature thin. 

The Doctor’s following breath comes out shaky, eyes wide, vision smearing like watercolours on their first swipe of a brush. There’s only so much water one can add before the colours dissipate and the paper tears. 

“I took my eye off the ball for too long. I got distracted making friends and showing off, trying to _impress_ you,” she admits, the weight taped down and anchored to her shoulders all this time already loosening its hold. She chooses blindly not to elaborate on the last words, because Yaz isn’t dumb and their closeness (at least until she’d started blocking her out) isn’t lost on her. “I should’ve known. I should have _expected_ this. I just thought — after all this, I thought —” 

A heaving sigh bounces along whitewashed walls and the lights suddenly seem too bright; too exposing. Vulnerability has never felt so blinding. 

“I thought that I might’ve come out on the other side; that nothing else could disrupt this. Us. Our adventures.” _And home_. Behind her eyes, Gallifrey burns once more. She’s visited twice more since her first glimpse, hoping against hope a clever perception filter and some excellent graphic work might’ve fooled her brain, to no avail. 

“The Master,” Yaz probes, following the path of a flinch when it corrupts the Doctor’s steely expression. “He has something to do with this, doesn’t he? You’ve been off since we met him.”

The Doctor’s solemn half-nod is the only reply she’s granted, familiar walls rebuilding, brick by brick, into place. 

“But he’s trapped, right? He’s still stuck in the other dimension?” Yaz continues. 

The Doctor doesn’t miss the flinch she succumbs to at the mention of the dark and empty nothingness she’d experienced only weeks prior. 

Yaz doesn’t sound so sure this time. “He’s still there, isn’t he?”

Her shoulders roll in a shrug she can’t halt and her head ducks, more guilt and more anxiety thrumming in waves from her old bones. “I can’t get there via the TARDIS. She doesn’t like dimension-hopping, not at her age. So,” she pauses to ring her hands at her sides, working her anxieties through capable fingers. “I don’t know, Yaz.” 

“We’ll find him,” Yaz asserts with the hope the Doctor seemingly lacks. “He can’t stay off the radar forever.”

“You don’t know him like I do,” the Doctor counters, but it’s not a defensive, biting response this time. It’s closer to anguish; the mourning of a good friend turned bad. “He’s from home,” A breath, thoughts scattering like golden ruins in orange skies. “He’s clever and he’s sneaky and he’s _always_ prepared.” 

Yaz is quiet for a moment and she can tell she’s rapidly trying to string everything together; to deduce his motives and predict his next move with the instinct of a police officer.

“Can’t your people sort him out? If the TARDIS can’t find them, then they can, surely? If they’re as clever as you?”

Like a dagger with barbs and ridges, her words wedge, searing and stubborn, into each heart in turn. 

Her gaze drops at the same time as her stomach, hot pressure blinking awake in the corners of her eyes. 

Golden spires and golden sand and a golden dome flash before her pupils, persistent and winding in their efforts to remind her.

The smell of smoke and burning and death floods her nostrils and she holds her breath briefly to keep herself breathing it in. 

“Doctor,” the word is close but distant and laced with questions she can’t answer without breaking. “Doctor, why can’t they help?”

The dagger buried in her chest twists on retraction, catching at her vital organs and tearing. 

“Doctor, please.” 

Warm pressure on her forearm grounds her and she quells a whimper, letting it disperse through a tremble which Yaz can likely feel beneath her palm. 

“We got so far today,” Yaz continues. 

She swallows around a solid lump in her throat, blinking back a tear which escapes stubbornly anyway. 

It seems she can’t stop _anything_ anymore, no matter how little. The resigned thought weighs her down further. 

“I want to hear you. I want to listen.”

_When I say someone did that, obviously I meant… I did. I had to make them pay for what I discovered._

Internally, she smashes through a cinema screen playing the memory on repeat until glass splinters and the speakers thrum upon disconnection. 

Affection seeps through her cerebrum like a warm hug in an instant, and the gentle, consoling exhales and sighs and hums of her ship resonate through the barriers she’d worked tirelessly to engineer. 

She sends a silent murmur of thanks to the TARDIS before a final shaky inhale halts Yaz’s patient waiting. 

“He burned it.” Said aloud, the words set like cement in the air, falling to her feet with a resounding _crash._ “He burned it all. Gallifrey is gone. I can’t save it.”

She slumps, resolute and bereaved, heels protesting with the weight of billions resting solely on her shoulders. 

The hand still holding purchase on her arm is the only thing keeping her anchored. 

“This is a time machine,” Yaz starts, noticeably wary but ever hopeful. That’s her Yaz. “Can’t you just go back and save it?” 

A slow shake of her head answers her question, but she figures she owes her an explanation. “Gallifrey — it works on a different axis. Time there is too unstable, too dangerous, even for my liking. That isn’t possible.” 

Laden with grief, the Doctor sighs, ducking her head and glaring holes into weathered boots. “It’s gone, Yaz.” A droplet of water splashes against the toe of her boot and she silently wonders where the leak in the ceiling suddenly came from. 

When the next bead of warm liquid pools at her chin and she has to hastily swipe it away with her sleeve, she stops looking for an answer. 

A ghosting squeeze of her arm coaxes her gaze back up and the Doctor refuses permission for any further tears to blur her vision. 

She’s meant to be a doctor of hope, of strength, of bravery. Tears will get her nowhere. 

“I know I couldn’t _possibly_ comprehend what you’re going through right now,” Yaz starts, earning the attention of hazel-green hues before she proceeds. “But you have to know that I’m here for you. _We_ are here for you. We’re here to listen — for you to talk to — and to help, always.” 

While the Doctor keeps quiet, shocked to near silence, she continues on. “Please don’t shut us — _me_ — out like that again. I think you underestimate how much we care about you.” 

With a soft, watery upturn of her lips and a slight nod, the words flit straight to the hearts thumping rapidly against her ribs, searing there like a plaque of ownership. _Cared for by Yaz, Graham and Ryan_ , it would read. 

The thought draws an instantaneous flood of affection to her grieving mind and protesting lungs, which is cemented by Yaz’s blossoming smile. 

“Okay, I did say you need a check-up too. So…” 

The words, laden with open warmth, accompany a brush of equally warm, smooth fingers against her collarbone in a touch which scolds her to the very bones she ploughs onward with. 

It’s enough to make her swallow heavily and she prays Yaz doesn’t spot the influx of hormones which leave her gaze darker than their usual hazel hue. 

The sharp drawing of oxygen to human lungs might dispel those prayers, though, and she blinks any residual effects away hastily. _Get a hold of yourself, Doctor._

“I’m fine, Yaz, honestly,” she breathes, but she doesn’t have the energy nor the drive to draw into herself and step away, _especially_ when Yaz is looking at her like she put the stars in the sky. 

She’d naively thought that opening up, divulging Yaz with answers to her questions and finally saying the words she’d been trying to avoid aloud would allow her a lightness to her muscles and her thoughts, but grief is never that kind. It clings to her, stubborn and unyielding like a dandelion seed in mid-summer, catching and sticking until it finds a suitable home to disperse. 

When she tells her to sit, the Doctor does so without argument, hopping up onto the medical cot and dwelling in the warmth Yaz’s body leaves behind on the clinical sheets. Her feet dangle and swing gently beneath her and, not for the first time, she’s reminded of the height difference this regeneration has disadvantaged her of. 

Being a closer level to Yaz isn’t so bad, though, especially when she slips the medical equipment into her ears and steps close enough for the Doctor to breathe in the faint smell of coconut and earth and home. While working to decipher whether it’s the scent of her shampoo or her shower gel, the cool, solid disc of the stethoscope settles, ghost-light, against her chest. 

“Left a bit,” she notes, hissing at the temperature of the cool metal but adapting in seconds. “Two hearts, remember?” 

The sudden pinkness to Yaz’s cheeks doesn’t go by unnoticed, and with a faint huff of amusement, the Doctor settles as still as she can. It’s usually a task in itself to keep restless limbs stationary, but in Yaz’s presence, a sense of calm asserts its dominance enough to ease her muscles from their usual fitfulness.

She can tell the moment Yaz picks up on the steady _thud_ of her left heart, deep brown eyes all but gleaming with curious abandon. There’s a lilt to the corner of her lips the Doctor cannot find it in herself to draw her gaze from. 

The once stable beat beneath the instrument falters for half a second and there’s a very slim chance Yaz doesn’t pick up on it. Silently, she curses herself, dragging dampened pupils back up. 

She meets her gaze while the stethoscope is relocated to the other side of her chest, lifting a hand to guide it a millimetre to the right. “Just there.”

Her voice sounds raspier even to her own ears, worn down by the emotions still buried just beneath the surface, laying dormant like magma in ashen chambers. 

“Just testing you,” Yaz quips, the words teasing but higher in pitch than usual, long lashes fluttering. She glances between the Doctor’s own eyes and the hand still curled around her wrist, something indecipherable but no less intriguing clouding her vision. 

“‘Course,” the Doctor hums through a chuckle which echoes in the spacious white room, familiar cheekiness slipping through. “So, what’s the diagnosis, Yasmin Khan?”

Only after another few moments of listening to the rare double beat beneath the Doctor’s ribs does Yaz pluck the instrument from her ears and set it down beside her. “Apart from being way too smug, you’re all good.” 

“Didn’t know you could measure that through a stethoscope,” the Doctor counters, only half-joking. She glances to her side to regard the apparatus in question. “Huh. Must be from the late 2050’s.” 

She’s aware of her surroundings enough now to measure the exact second Yaz rolls her eyes. 

And she’s also aware enough to send her a half-formed grin in response, the weight on her shoulders and chest no longer ignorant to the protesting bones beneath. She pockets the stethoscope — because there’s _always_ a need and she’s a doctor, after all — and slips from the cot with a swing of her legs. 

“You should probably get some rest,” she finds herself observing aloud when she takes in the slightly bloodshot nature of brown eyes and the exhaustion rolling off of her in waves. “Tough day.”

“I’m fine, honestly,” Yaz responds in open repetition of the Doctor’s earlier blaze reassurance, popping a brow the second she goes to protest. “Promise. Think I’ll hang around in the console room with you for a bit if you don’t mind?” 

A defeated _Yasmin Khan, you’re going to be the death of me_ flashes through her mind like a pin piercing a balloon of confetti. 

She adores confetti. 

She adores — no. Not right now. Another time. 

“Of course. I can always do with a helping hand.” She gives in too easily for her liking. It’s becoming an unshakable habit. “Can’t promise you won’t get bored though,” she adds in a last-ditch attempt to encourage the other woman to give in to the slumber she needs. She shoves her hands into her pockets and turns for the door when Yaz seems stubbornly unlikely to take the bait, flashing far-too-fond look over her shoulder. 

Her shoulders relax the second they cross the threshold into the familiar gold and blue of the Doctor’s favourite room aboard the ship, as though returning home. While she rounds the console, Yaz finds herself a spot on the corrugated steps. 

It can’t be too comfortable, but if it’s what Yaz needs at this moment, the Doctor would never deny her. 

“Thank you.” The words echo in the mostly empty space, drawing the Doctor’s attention up from a set of green, amber and red buttons assembling traffic lights on Earth to a lever at her side, which she walks her fingers over in curious abandon. 

In faux-casualness, the Doctor runs through the possible answers before the question has even graced her tongue. Her gaze rises again and she turns to regard her properly. 

Exhaustion clings to Yaz’s pupils like sand in clothing for weeks after a trip to the beach. Persistent and unyielding. “For what?” 

There’s a button at her side which has loosened and makes a faint squeak when she toys restlessly at its component. The Doctor makes a note to oil the gears when her mind is less foggy and her thoughts are organised by importance rather than strewn about the place like crayons in a children’s classroom. 

“For letting me stay,” Yaz replies, distracted in thought. 

The Doctor can only offer a smile in response, practiced ease it’s only pursuer. 

Her foot finds the familiar pedal before she can think about it, but no sugary treat follows. Perhaps she is not as deserving as she thought. Perhaps she just needs to refill the dispenser. 

The screen before her flashes, a quick scan of their environment returning no distress calls; no mysterious messages; no threats to her ship’s protective shields; no distractions from the inevitable. 

The language on the screen changes to the familiarity of her mother tongue to inform her of no signs of the Master, either. 

She’s oblivious to the way her shoulders tense and curve and obscure the sight from view. 

There’s no doubt he has managed to escape; she’s not naive, at least when it comes to the walking, talking evil she used to call her friend. 

But maybe she is? After all, her occasional exchange of messages with O still takes centerpiece behind her eyes when she thinks back and replays those crucial interactions for any hints; any sly comments; any remorse. 

Yaz’s voice is loud in the quiet. “Doctor.”

With a barely concealed start, the Doctor jumps, violently dragged from the depths of her mind and deposited back into the not-so-empty console room. She clasps a lever just to stop herself tumbling over on her heels. 

She gathers all the lightness and ease and casual nature she finds within herself to answer. “Yeah?” 

In an effort to hide the tremble to her fingers, she channels strength to her hands and, incidentally, nudges the hand brake out of action. 

The following jolt and wheeze are akin to being dragged from slumber and dumped into the present reality with no map and her boots on fire. 

“Whoops!” she breathes upon correction, jamming the lever down until it clicks and leaning casually against the console as though no mistake was ever made. “Sorry, old girl.” 

The TARDIS doesn’t think that way, though, nudging and poking at her mind like an annoying younger sibling while, on the exterior, it huffs and beeps into tense air. 

“I said sorry!” she protests, sinking back against the engineered metal despite its complaints. She crosses one ankle over the other and sinks her hands into the pockets of her trousers, then crosses her arms, then changes her mind again — her wrinkled sleeves are raised to the tops of her elbows, where they sit while she fiddles with a component beside her. 

“Could you show me what some of those things do?” Yaz’s question is so innocent, so easy that the Doctor can only blink at her in quiet regard. “I’m not asking to learn how to fly the TARDIS. Have a feeling I won’t be able to do that ever, probably. But I’m curious. I’d like to know.”

Her lips fall into a thin line and faintly, her brows furrow, inviting lines to dance along the bridge of her nose. Apprehension weighs at her gut, working alongside a flare of protectiveness to wrestle over instinct. 

“You don’t have to, you know,” Yaz reminds her gently, and the Doctor sinks further against the console, considering. She’s too soft; too weak; too vulnerable to this incredible human and her requests for her own good. The potential risk hinders her decision further. 

And Yaz can read her like an open book, it seems. “I just thought you’d like the conversation.”

She wants to say no, to deny her if only to keep at bay the thought of Yaz piloting her ship, becoming more and more like her in the same fatal journey far too many have ventured willingly and excitedly before. Admiration makes people a danger to themselves. 

But Yaz — that’s not just admiration. There’s a depth there; a depth so deep, so full, with so much potential, it should weigh her down like a boat taking on too much water. A thriving bus at capacity. A heart, too big for its own weight; a door, closed but unlatched and inviting. She hasn’t knocked yet, so there’s no risk of falling through. At least not for now. 

“You won’t understand most of what I spout,” she answers by way of excuse, her tone unmatched to the potential for patronisation. “The technology’s way more advanced than human capabilities,” she adds with a shrug, wetting her bottom lip with a pink tongue in a sheepish tick.

But Yaz is steadfast despite the exhaustion rolling off her in waves. “Even better.”

Her quietly encouraging expression wins over the Doctor’s resolve, as always, lifting her lips and brows in reluctant acceptance. 

The lingering comfort she finds in tired brown eyes is enough to catch in her throat and make her falter, so, seeking a welcome distraction, she spins back to the console and reaches out for the closest lever. “Right, then!”

And so she motions to the handbrake, reading Yaz’s expression as she embraces what she does best; showing off. 

“This—” she curls her fingers in mid-air beside the component, catching Yaz’s flitting gaze with a hit of amusement. Does she have oil on her hands? Maybe she should paint her nails — bright green, perhaps. 

The phantom weight of a wedding band flashes in her mind and she breathes a faint sigh in reminiscence. 

Did she tell her what the lever did? She must’ve, because Yaz is laughing now and, suddenly, her mind is clear. 

_Not now._

“Sounds proper human,” Yaz comments, wide smile alight with humour. “What was that about the technology being more advanced?” 

Her response is instant. Their banter is easy in light of recent events. Familiar; instinctive; flirty?

In amidst of alarm bells, she finds she wouldn’t really mind if they were. 

“Oi!” Her tone is teasing, hands falling to her hips and bunching in the material of her jumper. Don’t be cheeky! I’ll have you know it’s one of the only Earth-like things on the console!” she chides, but there’s a lack of genuine frustration there. 

Again, the TARDIS jabs at her mind, laughter found in its incessant whirring and bleeping. _Look up_ , it whispers to her. 

For once, she listens, knuckles white in their grip on the console behind her while she loses herself to Yaz’s remaining smile. She thinks she might be grinning, too. Foolishly and selfishly, she sweeps her gaze over Yaz’s features. 

She clears her throat the second it meanders to full lips if only so her hearts don’t give way. 

Shaky fingers clasp around the gauge to her right, words leaving her lips at a mile a minute. “This is the anti-grav stabiliser,” she informs, swallowing again before continuing. “Had a few of these in our times, haven’t we?” the ship hums its agreement, warmth engulfing her brimming mind like a warm hug. It’s a welcome change and she blinks slowly like a feline gaining the attention it deserves. “Been a bit unreliable,” she adds, half in apology to her loyal ship. “ _However,_ I’ve finally figured out what was going on, though, when you and the lads were enjoying the Apollo 11 launch. Hopefully. And this—” the red button is cool beneath her finger, just above the materialisation lever. The TARDIS’s reluctance is audible and chiding, like a mother refusing their child desserts before dinner — which, quite frankly, is entirely unfair. Dessert is the best part. 

Nonetheless, a custard cream tumbles down from a compartment beneath the console. 

_Thanks, old girl._

“— Activates emergency biscuits. Don’t touch that unless I tell you to. Also, don’t let Ryan touch it either.” A satisfying _crunch_ and a surge of sugar into her system later, the Doctor brushes crumbs free from her jumper. 

The next explanation comes more naturally, words languid and easy as she grips at the pulley system beneath the console’s ridged edge. “This attaches to the oil tank underneath my feet, so I don’t fall down too far. It’s like a swing, actually.” She turns back to Yaz if only to grin. “I love swings.” 

“And this,” she announces, gesturing to a disc beside the main screen, the connected wire leading to a crown secured against the console. “Is the telepathic circuit. Don’t get to use it enough, in my opinion. We used it when we visited the Punjab, remember?”

“Is that a helmet?” Yaz queries from her position at the steps, motioning towards the headpiece in question. 

“ _That_ is a telepathic navigator,” the Doctor murmurs, unclipping the helmet to offer a demonstration. “Basically, you put it on, the Glindolian crystal _here_ —” she points out the dazzling gold gem, a grin on her face _“_ — syncs up to your brain waves when you think about a particular place or event, and the TARDIS calculates a route. Simple stuff, really.”

“Sounds it,” Yaz counters, chuckling when the Doctor grins goofily. 

She’s in her element, now, another pirouette repositioning her at the next section while she reels off each and every component the console has to offer. 

“These,” she continues on another ten minutes later, moving on to a series of square buttons set in a neat grid. “Control the rooms. Temperatures, sizes, number of bunk beds. Bunk beds are _brilliant_ . Can’t get enough of them. Have you seen the ones with sofas underneath? Bunk beds _and_ sofas in one? Got one in my room, actually. I think. Haven’t been there in a while.” 

Hushed quiet is her only response until the Doctor turns back to the steps with a funny remark a long minute later. 

Slumped against the railing at her side and sinking into her self-afflicted hug, Yaz’s eyes are closed to the room, breaths shallow and steady against her jacket collar. 

“Oh,” the Doctor breathes, allowing her gaze to linger for no longer than a minute before she shrugs her coat from stiff shoulders and quietly ambles over. 

A second of hesitation makes her falter before the garment encircles her shoulders and she steps respectfully back, hearts fluttering in a telling fashion which ought to scare her. Instead, only warmth surges between ancient hearts. 

Making a silent note to quieten down, the Doctor crouches to eye the regular biscuit dispenser before hasty steps draw her to the kitchen. 

The boys have upped sticks and abandoned the kitchen by the time she roots around for her favourite sugary snack, affording her an easy escape from invasive, suspicious comments and queries. The mere thought encourages a headache to bloom in protest. 

When she returns to the console room, Yaz is still resting quietly at the bottom of the steps, but the slight furrow to her brow encourages a watchful eye while the time lord works. 

One successfully re-filled custard cream dispenser later, she lifts a weathered metal grate to duck underneath the console and probe around aimlessly, but the laboured breathing and muted whimpers from the other side of the room pique her concern and stop her in her tracks. 

“Yaz?” she murmurs, light and breezy, hoping to coax the discomfort from her slumber with the sound of a familiar voice.

When the console room continues to echo her distress, the Doctor bounces up to her feet and pads over to crouch before trembling knees. “Hey, hey, Yaz. You’re dreaming,” she whisper-shouts, prying tense, slightly clammy hands from her shoulders to capture them between her own. “Yaz? Come on, wake up.”

The process starts with a simple flinch, then the human’s strong brows pinch and her features contort with anguish, souring her lips into a wavering, frightful frown. Fear resonates from her very bones a second before she struggles against her light hold, fitful, scared, attempting to scramble away. 

“Yaz!” she raises her voice this time, cupping warm cheeks between warm palms. Her panting, whimpering breaths drown out the fissures inhibiting each side of the Doctor’s chest. “Yaz!”

Her wakefulness is sudden and panicked, grief-stricken eyes flitting and blinking in obvious alarm. It occurs to the Doctor, then, that she’s never seen her friend anything other than composed, if falsely.

When doe-brown meets green, however, the Doctor is quick to brush her thumbs under her eyes, casting astray the residue of a nightmare unexplained but easily predicted. 

“Oh, my God,” she hears her breathe, voice gravelly but weak with sleep. 

“You’re safe,” the Doctor murmurs, foregoing hesitation when her lips brush Yaz’s forehead. She doesn’t remember ever being so close. “It was just a dream. It wasn’t real, Yaz. _This?”_ Again, cool lips mould against dark skin, emboldened by the need to reassure her and to ground her to the here and now. “This is real.” 

She allows her a minute to steady her breathing, hands still glued to strong cheekbones and wiping away stray tears. “Are you okay?” then, more tentatively, green eyes softening, “Do you want to talk about it?”

When Yaz flinches, she wilts, wetting her lips. “Hey, you don’t have to. Just — I’m here, if you did.”

Yaz’s features are still ashen when, tellingly, she glances around as if surveying for potential threats rather than answering the Doctor’s rambling questions. 

“I had a dream the other night that my socks came alive and wanted to eat my toes,” she reels off instead of probing further, dropping her hands from dampened cheeks to clasp around Yaz’s own and offer up an anchor to a lost sailor; a spare oxygen tank to a deep-sea diver; a working life-pod to an abandoned astronaut. “They were my favourite socks, too,” she adds with a petulant frown, emphasised just to seek amusement in deep brown eyes. “Haven’t worn them since.”

“You’re so strange,” Yaz comments with a watery grin which is readily returned. 

“Thanks,” the Doctor responds, quick and easy like her smile. Concern still furrows her brow, though, and while her thumb absently brushes the juts and ridges of her knuckles, the Doctor settles properly into the step beside her, thigh-to-thigh as she seeks her eyes out. “Are you okay?” she repeats gently. 

“Fine, yeah,” Yaz replies, pulse easing beneath the Doctor’s wondering thumb. “Just —”

The time lord keeps quiet while Yaz finds her words, counting the damp lashes gracing her bottom lid. 

“The dregs,” Yaz supplies plainly, swallowing audibly under the insinuation; under the prospect of her future — of Earth’s. 

“Ah.” The Doctor nods, stilling her motions to catch another tear when it falls. From her endless pockets, she draws a tissue free, sacrificing one of Yaz’s hands to let her dry her cheeks. “Thought it might’ve been.” 

As quick as it departed, her hand returns to the welcome affection of a warm palm. 

Alongside her unusually skittish gaze, Yaz’s voice comes away raw and half-empty. “That’s in my head now. Forever,” she announces to the empty air between them as though reeling thoughts from the top of her head. “For the rest of my life. Everything made rubble, all my life undone…”

With heavy hearts, the Doctor interrupts before this most recent revelation has a chance to spoil her. Her journey will not be defined by Orphan 55’s haunting potential. “It isn’t fixed, remember? This isn’t set in stone. It’s not a fixed point in time,” she reminds her, gentle but hopeful; hopeful for a future nothing close to the one they have witnessed here today. 

If one of them is to lose their home, the Doctor is grateful in her loss. Yaz will not lose hers, too. 

When Yaz shakes her head, she is ready with another reassuring response. 

But then — 

“And you were burned too.” 

The words puncture like nails through rubber in the space beneath her ribs and the Doctor’s reaction is instantaneous. Features softening and green pupils widening, guilt and empathy and sorrow surge through her in waves. She blinks, quick and surprised. “You were — it was your body. You were lost. You were coming for me.”

 _Of course, I was,_ she wants to murmur, but she thinks her gaze might display it clearly enough for words to be deemed unnecessary. 

In the nightmares of those she tarnishes, she is likely a constant presence. The thought is enough to blur and bludgeon her thoughts out of shape for a long minute or three. 

One minute and thirteen seconds later, she wilts against centuries-old experience. “Then you know it’s not real,” she manages, somehow, to draw together a response, “because I’m right in front of you. Here.” Yaz’s hands are warm against the thin material of her top when her palms settle against her chest, drawn there by coaxing encouragement and guiding fingers. 

Encased beneath, two hearts sing to a four-beat melody. 

“Right as rain,” she implores, energetic nature curbed in favour of tender reassurance. “Not a scratch.” 

Yaz’s reply does not come without consternation. “I know.”

If it’s the reminder of life beating and blood pumping and vessels working that Yaz needs, the Doctor will not refuse her, and for the following few moments, the gentle pressure against her chest remains. 

A whirl of coconut shampoo and a soft citrus fragrance migrates toward her nostrils with their close quarters, but as always, her proximity to Yaz is something gained, not lost or burdened. For now, at least, while she’s allowing for selfishness. 

It is only with her pulse quickening in her neck that the younger woman draws back her hands from her hearts and her doe eyes from emerald. Gone too soon is their heady gaze, but it will no doubt return. 

If the Doctor’s own racing hearts are to go by, her separation comes just in time, too. 

“Thank you,” Yaz breathes into the limited space still remaining between them, brown irises lifting like clouds after rain until, flushed, the Doctor can bask in their gaze again. 

“Always, Yaz,” comes her promise, honest and firm while her cheeks flare.

The equally familiar yet jarring nature of how she’s feeling catches up with her, vulnerability leaving her desperate for a distraction she can easily manipulate through the tips of her fingers.

To keep their trembling from sight, the Doctor works through a process, building a pattern of fidgeting movements which begin with interlocked hands and end with her smoothing clammy palms over her trousers. 

“Doctor?” Yaz’s voice breaks the chain and her hands still, interwoven and secure in her lap. “Can we — I mean, can I have a hug? Can we hug?”

“Oh,” the sound is uttered more like a sigh, and the Doctor swallows, tongue darting out to wet her lips like a reptile in mid-summer seeking hydration when none can be found. Adapting while everything stands against them.

Her nerves are unwelcome and dizzying and solely unique to Yaz’s presence, but the smile she sets free disguises them, however dazed and silly it might look. “‘Course.” 

And by Rassilon, when Yaz sweeps strong arms around her and her sweet scent fills her senses up like someone’s shoved a bunch of lilies and a fresh fruit under her nose, she wishes she had done this sooner. 

Coconut scented shampoo takes centre stage when Yaz’s head comes to rest against her shoulder and after a mild panic over whether she should leave the joint tense or relax it, the Doctor simply breathes another relieved sigh against the crown of her head, limbs easing. The kiss she presses there is light enough to be considered nonexistent, but the comfort it brings is quite the opposite. 

Another minute, another anxiety-induced decision to slow her breaths to deep, steady inhales rather than their shallow, quickened counterparts so she doesn’t jostle her. If this is what a hug from Yasmin Khan has to offer, she wouldn’t mind seeking one more often, like paper notes passed around the class back in school; her own, private indulgence. 

She’s not going to take this for granted. 

The quiet is comfortable, its rarity making this time blessed. 

But this body is so up-and-go, so energetic and _busy_ , that she’s more surprised than ever when she finds her mind clear and her usually fidgeting limbs calm and collected in their embrace. 

“I used to dream that Barney the Dinosaur went to my school and tried to sabotage my GCSE exams,” Yaz murmurs into the quiet, dragging the Doctor from her most recent revelations and back into the present. She eyes the quilted pattern on the shoulder of her leather jacket before tracing the seams with her fingers. “And then my Bratz dolls from my childhood became real people, and we banded together to expose Barney as a liar,” she continues, missing the quiver of stomach muscles when the Doctor laughs silently. 

“I had that dream seven times in three weeks,” she finishes with an amused lilt to her tone alongside reminiscence. 

The Doctor, though, doesn’t want that to be the end. She thinks, idly, if they stay like this all night, she might be able to paint a picture of Yaz’s life by morning. Or perhaps whe won’t even scratch the surface. For now, the outlining sketch will do. If it’s all she’s granted. 

She daren’t ask for more, not when it took so much for her own truths to meet the surface. 

Perhaps she should stop her? Perhaps she’s undeserving of this insight? The thought is enough to make her wilt, so she doesn’t implore for more details. 

“Clever clogs like you?” The compliment breezes past her lips with ease, but sets the tips of her ears ablaze. “Barney never stood a chance.”

Yaz’s shrug moulds their shoulders together. “The weirdest thing was that everyone was cool with Barney being a student,” she notes in disbelief while the Doctor racks her mind for recognition. 

_Barney; pet form of Barnabus. Derived from the Aramaic son of exhortation._

“A great big purple dinosaur. At school.”

Well _that_ makes more sense. Or less. There’s a warm cheek resting against her shoulder and an even warmer body against her side— she can’t be blamed for her frazzled thoughts. 

Oh! Purple things. She knows stuff about purple things. Yaz might be impressed. 

Why does she want to impress Yaz?

The revelation makes her jump, clumsy and sudden, already mourning the loss of Yaz’s presence against her. “Did you know there’s a planet covered in purple plants for almost all of its seasons?” she starts, losing herself to memories of the first time she’d accidentally set foot on the planet. She’d almost returned to the TARDIS with a new pet. “And all the animals there have one thing in common: their scales, or fur, or skin, all have pigments that reflect the colour of their food, so they’re nearly always purple. Purple dinosaur-like aliens!” Swept up, the Doctor’s lips lift in a beaming, wonderous grin, train of thought restored. “And I know for a _fact_ that they don’t try to ruin people’s grades too. Very lovely bunch, they were.”

Because, of all people, Yaz does not deserve bad grades. 

Plus, well, if she were to return, she thinks Yaz might be the easiest to persuade into letting her adopt a pet platypus, purple beak and all. 

So, when Yaz announces that they should visit, the Doctor’s grin widens with glee. 

But, as always, there’s always something to hinder her enthusiasm. 

“Take a break — a proper one this time. No nasty surprises,” Yaz requests, tone weighed down by thought. 

The Doctor doesn’t need telepathy to imagine what’s replaying behind Yaz’s tired pupils. 

All three of her friends have seen so much now; so much loss, so much death, so much _hatred_. It’s a surprise they’re still at her side by the end of each weary day. 

“I think I’d like to go home first though,” Yaz continues, unknowingly feeding the red-skinned, fork-tongued figure perched on the Doctor’s shoulder as well as her overactive train of thought. “See my family again.”

Right, yes. Of course. Of course she’d want to go home. 

She still has one. 

The Doctor glances at the console, already mapping out the route to take her ship to Sheffield, UK, in the year 2020. Not 2026 this time, although that was a silly mistake on her behalf. Yaz shouldn’t have smiled at her like _that_ in the purple-blue light. What was she expecting?

Her feet are moving, mood dropping, shoulder’s tensing, before she can think. She lifts herself up a touch, legs aching from the awkwardness of metal-grated floors. “Not a problem. I can get started—” 

“No!” There’s an arm still hooked over her shoulders, halting her in her actions with gentle persistence. The Doctor greets the welcome contact with a furrow to her brows. 

“Not yet. In the morning,” Yaz adds in answer to her silent query. 

Right. Morning. That’s hours away. 

The thought of more time spent in a world of their own, tucked close together for shared comfort over warmth, forces a flutter from twin hearts in unison and her head to reel. 

“Oh.” She’s dizzy by the time she sinks back into Yaz’s side, legs like jelly. “Graham and Ryan are probably sleeping anyway,” she reels off in defence of her own needs, her own craving to remain here, like this. 

The mention of their friends jogs her memory back to the kitchen, where hushed whispers held doubt and suspicion over their usual innocent manner. She doesn’t blame them — she can’t, but it doesn’t mean she is not hurt by their wavering trust. 

They’ll understand, right?

But, then again, she wouldn’t blame them if they do not. 

The idea of revealing; of retelling; of opening up, _again_ , makes her just that much more panicked. It shows on her face when she turns to her friend. 

“Are they okay, Yaz?” she questions, not withholding the anxiety to her tone. 

She may have already lost them, and she doesn’t even know. There is no mercy in withholding truth, but in suffering, ignorance suits her better. 

That does not, by any means, deem it a healthy coping mechanism, but she clings to it nonetheless. 

Yaz’s hands ground her when she seeks and encloses her own around them. “I mean, really?”

Guilt and shame and embarrassment draw her gaze down to weathered boots, following the curl and wind of brown laces which work as the only structure to secure them to her feet. Like the nooks of a spine and the bend of ribs, they hold together everything else. 

The Doctor’s thumb brushes past Yaz’s knuckles and she anchors herself to the strength there which her resolve lacks. 

If she does not honour her honesty and open up soon, she will lose Graham and Ryan to cowardice. And she promised herself. She _made_ that promise, to herself — himself — not to be cowardly, all those dizzying months ago. It took only a year to break it. 

She selfishly hopes it will take less than that to fix it again.

“They’ll be fine, Doctor, eventually,” Yaz offers, easing her worries from a raging storm to a low murmur. The Doctor repeats the motion against the back of Yaz’s hand while her counterpart divulges her. “It’s been hard for us, not knowing.”

Another truth, another wave of self-deprecation. The Doctor does not deserve the soothing motions Yaz’s hands offer so freely. The caresses stop. Her gaze drops back to her boots, then her knees, taking in grey dust still clinging stubbornly to the blue material. 

Yaz’s further reassurances fall on half-deaf ears, clouded by guilt. She wants to pull back, to saunter away and close herself off again. She wants to run. 

Instead, she nods. 

“I told them you saved me,” she hears over the whirling winds and surging waves, head still hanging low when she returns her attention to the voice at her side and the present moment. “I told them you gave me your breath. Though I still think you should've saved it for yourself, Doctor.” 

Regret still tinges her words, turning her gut at the thought that she could’ve been too late. She could’ve _lost_ her, all because she was too caught up in her own head. “You should’ve told me you were running out!” she echoes from earlier. 

Pale-lipped and gaunt, Yaz’s expression flashes like lightning before her eyes, sudden and unpredictable and brief but no less jarring. No. she will not let that happen again. She will not even let it come _close._

Quelling a shiver, she heaves a breath through her nose and traces the gaps between Yaz’s fingers with the pads of her own in the only comfort not wiped from her form. 

But, when Yaz lifts her eyes and levels them with exhausted emerald, the Doctor cannot find it in herself not to smile. She gives in, as always, to the police officer in training from Sheffield with a courage and bravery and selflessness she should take note of. 

So why is it, when she looks into deep brown eyes, she only finds admiration and wonder and awe? What makes her so deserving of it? What could possibly—

When those same eyes flicker south to trace the curve of her lips, the Doctor’s mind empties like a balloon popped or a beach ball unplugged at its nozzle after a day at the beach. 

Oh. 

Heightened hearing hones in on the quickening beat of a human heart until she has to eye the thumping, pulsing movement just below Yaz’s jaw to ensure she’s not losing her sanity. 

By the time she glances back up, curious and hopeful, Yaz’s eyes have fluttered closed, lips parted enough to send a flood of heat to her gut. Is she—? 

She remembers it now, bringing oxygen back to a slackened body and deprived lungs, but at the time, the thought never occurred — huh. She’d — well, effectively, she’d taken the plunge. Only now, in the time after, does she register its significance. 

Now, though, it hits her full force and she desperately blinks back the … desire? — she’s likely leaving openly on display. 

But Yaz’s eyes don’t open and she starts doubting. It is selfish for her to assume she is the source of Yaz’s stillness, her fluttering heart, her dazed quiet.

Hope gives way to concern, and her thumb moves again, dipping to her wrist before it breezes over her knuckles again. There is no thought put to it — it happens outside of her consciousness, but it grows firm alongside her worry. 

“Yaz? You okay?” 

When her eyes open, it’s like returning home. This is the only home she can find, now, so the moment is cherished. Affection floods to her stomach, squirming there, screaming for attention, for exposure, for a release only found in the flutter of lashes and the upturn of her lips. 

Yaz’s voice is trained and steady when she regards her, despite still blinking away a daydream of sorts. “Doctor...”

“Yes?” It’s embarrassing how quickly she responds. She thinks Yaz’s heart rate has picked up again, but she can’t be sure and, frankly, she doesn’t want to break their gaze. 

“Earlier, on Orphan 55, when Kane arrived,” she starts, already appearing to have a plan in mind. 

The Doctor takes herself back, pupils glossy when she recalls the stubborn woman’s impulsive actions. She daren’t think about what fate became of her and her daughter. 

But why is Yaz drawing the memory to the surface? What happened th—

“You turned to me. And — you were about to say something.”

Oh. _Oh._

Of course. Observant, never-misses-a-thing-Yaz. Of course she remembers. 

All at once, she is motionless, mouth drying when her tongue, too, freezes to the bottom of her mouth. She is rarely stunned to silence, but Yaz continues to surprise her. 

She can _hear_ the cogs turning swift and persistent in Yaz’s head when she reads her expression, and she can predict the string of words tready on her tongue before they slip free. 

“What were you gonna say?” Yaz questions, hopeful but understandably wary. In the early hours of the morning, her words are emboldened by fatigue and wear. 

But — she can’t. The Doctor cannot give into this. It’s too — she’s already revealed enough today. Vulnerability should be stored, only released in ebbs and flows. It’s too much. 

This would be a torrent. She did not prepare for flash floods. 

Easing back until a corrugated step presses into her lower back, the Doctor offers her breeziest smile to date. “Oh, nothing,” she shrugs, hands still. “Really.” 

Whether it is anger or disappointment she finds in Yaz’s eyes, the Doctor shrinks under the conviction of it. 

The same conviction laces her name as it is spoken into the heavy air. “Doctor.”

Her name, spoken in so many languages and scribed in so many books, has never been pronounced in a tone as exasperated as it does now. She selfishly wants to laugh and play dumb if it means she does not have to face another truth; to shatter the dam and watch as Yaz is swept away. 

She will not submit Yaz to that. She does not deserve this. “I can’t remember, Yasmin. I’m sorry.” The use of her given name should warn her, because she’s scared; scared about revealing all; scared about what this might mean. More than anything, she is terrified that telling the truth will make this real. 

And if it is real, and her feelings are laid bare, there is no doubt she will lose her. 

If she loses her, she won’t have anything left to keep her humanity in check. 

The thought; the potential; the near-fact floods through her veins until her hands are trembling against Yaz’s own. 

But Yaz continues on. She was never going to go easy on her. Especially now. “ _Doctor._ Don’t do this now,” she murmurs, close to a beg. The Doctor seeks out her eyes, finding a dangerous mix of emotions there. But— “It’s still me.” 

No. She can’t. She won’t. 

Her vulnerability makes its own mind up. 

She loses. 

“ _Exactly,”_ she breathes, harsh and firm but lacking bite. Their hands are woven now. She is held there, but she can’t find it in herself to pull away. Perhaps she should stop trying.

Perhaps Yaz needs her just as much as she needs Yaz. 

She’s stopped smiling now, too frightened, too worried, and too tired to force one when Yaz can see right through her. She’s proved as much. Of _course_ she has. “I wanted to apologise for kissing you.” 

Brown eyes wide, Yaz’s voice is closer to a whisper. “Kissing me?”

Did she say the wrong thing? Wait — did she say _kissing?_ She wasn’t meant to — oh. “Yeah — I mean, technically, it was a resuscitation, so I suppose it’s not _actually_ a kiss, but — still — I still should’ve asked—” 

Cursed mouth, running away from her without a warning. She hates it when it does that, like a toddler having a tantrum in a toy store. Oh! Alliteration. Alliteration is brilliant. 

“Did you want it to be a kiss?” 

Did she — 

Was that — 

“Is that why you called it that?”

Oh. 

She thinks her jaw might have hit the floor. She’s not quite sure. Is this what an aneurysm feels like? All thudding pulse and jellied limbs, the Doctor barely registers Yaz’s migrating hands, as well as her own, until the pressure over her pulsepoint makes her blink back into focus. She might gasp. She’s not sure. She’s not so sure of anything anymore, especially now her own hearts are betraying her. Must it always be this way? 

Humans: they always have a way of targeting the weakest points of her hearts and setting up camp there. 

When Yaz clears her throat, her focus returns tenfold. The spirals ghosting against her open, splayed palms are soothing in the best possible way. She is hypnotised, or perhaps she’s hallucinating. 

“Don’t apologise, Doctor.” she homes in on her voice even while terror surges, wild and unpredictable and swept up in the pit of her belly. “For a start, it saved me.” 

She would never have left her in a situation like that. She would and will always be there to save her, even if it kills her. Perhaps it’s reckless. 

Perhaps she’s just head over heels. 

Recognition lights a fire in her chest. 

“I— I know, but..” If anything remains, she is still a gentleman. Gentlewoman? Gentleperson? Not important right now, Doctor. “You might’ve said no. You might’ve regretted it.” 

She takes a steading breath — 

“I definitely wouldn’t have.”

— and promptly chokes on it. 

Her eyes are as wide as sauce pans. She’s sure of it. Her hearts have never pounded so heavily in her chest. She’s surprised her ribs haven’t shattered with the weight of them. 

“W-What?” Shock can do dangerous things. She needs to hear her say it again. 

Sure and unyielding, the Doctor weaves her fingers between Yaz’s on reflex. She can hear her next intake of breath. It is staggered and surprised. 

“Yaz,” she pleads, the air around them charged and fizzling like a shaken coke can. 

“I underestimated how much I care for you,” Yaz announces to the room, eyelids fluttering open in time for a deluge of words to fissure the glass shield around the Doctor’s hearts. “I think you did too.” 

Is — Is she that obvious?

“And when you closed off, it hurt more than I thought it would. More than I wanted it to. The last thing I want, Doctor, is to lose this. You. And I thought I — we were. But tonight…” 

She is carrying so much. She is _feeling_ so much. The Doctor’s clammy hands are shaking, wrapped and enclosed and enveloped around her own. She still can’t find the words Yaz seemingly has prepared. “ _Yaz.”_

And she is not granted any for the time being, if Yaz’s shaking head implies. 

“I spent a lot of time today trying to get you to talk, to tell you that you’re _heard_ , ‘cause the more you pulled away, the more we lost you. But then you gave me your breath, and at the stairs, you looked at me — actually, finally, _looked_ at me — and for a second… I thought you were going to kiss me again,” she recounts, chest heaving by the time she has surged through and come out vulnerable and open to the elements. There’s something to be admired in the unquelled tremor in her bottom lip as well as the fingers curled tight and secure around the Doctor’s. 

“Then I heard your heartbeat in the med bay,” she adds with a smile which sets the Doctor’s hearts off again. “The flutter.”

“Yaz.”

A gaze drawn, lips parted in readiness for further argument. 

But it is pointless. The Doctor is weak. She is so, so tired and her hearts are worn down from age and experience, but — 

But —.

“Yaz, it’s — I’m —” She’s never been very good with words. With the addition of their proximity, thigh nestled to thigh and hands warm and clinging, settled in her lap, as well as the whirlwind of words, emotions and memories flooding through her mind, the Doctor is stumped. Somewhere between acceptance and rejection and irrefutable reciprocation, she is lost — for words and in footing. 

“Yaz, I can’t—” 

“Please,” Yaz’s words are terse and thick, and when the Doctor lifts her gaze, glassy brown pupils confirm her fears. No, no. Can’t have a crying Yaz. It should be illegal on every planet this side of the universe. “Don’t lie to me. I can handle rejection but I don’t want to lose you.” 

Bargaining with the devil on her shoulder is no easy feat. 

One of her hands breaks free if only so half moons have no chance of harming brown skin in favour of her own. Her palm is the victim of her ministrations while she thinks and thinks and thinks through her options, gaze averting only to return home. 

Home. 

She can’t risk losing this one too. 

“Yaz,” she repeats like a broken record, but from the name she gains enough strength to carry on. Crescents grow, indentations deep and slicing but not enough to draw blood. Her mind is full. “You won’t lose me.” 

At her side, Yaz visibly deflates, hands drawing away while a choked sound rises, unbidden and unquelled from strong lungs. 

“Wait — what are you d—” the Doctor stammers, confusion lacing every syllable as she tightens her grip. Both hands curl around Yaz’s forearm before a broken gaze meets hers in question. “Come back. Yaz, please. I’m trying to — _Gods_ , why is this so hard? Yaz, I’m bad at this. Really, _really_ bad, but I'm trying. Please don’t leave.”

When she does return, as weary as the action may be, the Doctor lifts the hands she’s come to cherish to the rapid, thudding beat of two hearts which sing in unison. 

Hands encircling her wrists, she holds her open palms to her chest and implores her to see sense through wordless communication. 

If only her telepathy worked both ways. If only Yaz could see into her mind, she could’ve saved so much of her exertion. 

The more she frets, the more she gazes openly into deep pools of brown, the faster the beat which greets soft palms. 

“How —” the Doctor starts, and with relief, she finds Yaz smiling patiently. It’s enough to make her cheeks flush pink and a flutter to draw Yaz’s lips up further. She’s got her. “How did you know?” she manages _finally_ , her heavy swallow punctuated by the bob to her throat. There’s a lump there, and a sheen of moisture caught between pupil and lid which is rapidly blinked away.

Yaz’s words come away softer now, a thumb brushing her collarbone while she maintains her tender pressure against her chest. “I didn’t,” she divulges, gaze tender and fixed on the Doctor’s own. “I just hoped, really hard. Before you gave me your oxygen, I was half-convinced you hated me—.”

Her argument is instantaneous. “What? Yaz, no, I could never—” 

“But, obviously, you didn’t,” Yaz interrupts despite the hurt twisting the Doctor’s lips down into a regretful frown. “And I knew that, really. It was just...”

Remorse floods through her once more. Another strong series of thuds echo against her ribs and even _she_ can hear it this time. It’s in her ears, where blood rushes and pinkens the tips. 

“And then, you know, I heard your heartbeat speed up when we were in the med bay... close to each other. I was so focused on not giving myself away that I couldn't think about it, couldn't give myself the chance. But I hoped I hadn't imagined it. That's all it took,” Yaz adds, and, well, if her hearts sky-rocket this time, she knows why. “Hope.”

She’s too slow to come up with a reply, again, but Yaz respects her struggle — she greets it with an affectionate smile and the Doctor falls harder. 

“Well, that and stubbornness,” A fingertip taps against her chest, mindful of the seam of her shirt, and Yaz battles on. Following a lock of baby hair as it catches in long lashes, she finds herself wanting to reach out, but she’s scared her hands are trembling too much. Poking someone’s eye out after the mutual admission of feelings would not be a good way to start building a relationship. “I right put my foot in it, but I just wanted to be sure. About you, about...” she leaves the rest of the sentence to the room, cheeks pinkening under the Doctor’s half-amused attention. 

“Yasmin Khan,” the Doctor breathes the name like a prayer. It sort of is, now. “Never had you down as a romantic.” 

“Really? You’re going to — you’re going to _poke_ _fun?_ Right now?” Yaz argues, but she’s grinning all the same. 

The Doctor is caught in its rays like the mid-summer sun, and, before she can hesitate, can fret and fidget and ruin anything before it starts, she closes the remaining distance between them and lets her shaky exhales breeze over full lips. 

Seconds before her gaze dips, she seeks out any signs of rejection, any signs Yaz is alarmed, uncomfortable or scared. 

“Tell me. Please. Tell me if — tell me to stop, if this isn’t what you want. Please, Yaz.” She doesn’t know which part she’s begging for, too dizzied by their proximity. 

Yaz’s pupils are blown, by shock or need, she doesn’t know, but a single, hasty nod draws trembling hands up. 

The side of her slender neck and the strong curve of her jaw are cradled when the Doctor finally, blissfully gives in, closing whatever distance is left to nudge their noses together and meet full lips with her own. 

By _Gods,_ she thinks her hearts might give way entirely when, soft and tentative, she moves her lips, seeking her out, breathing her in, sighing out a shuddering breath through her nose and absolutely melting against her. 

She tastes like wild berries at their ripest; like the sweetest of delicacies on Saturn’s third moon; like home, and the Doctor sinks into it, is absorbed entirely by it until her touch moves, her head tilts and she continues her exploration. 

She should’ve done this sooner. _She should’ve done this sooner._ The admission rings through her ears and shudders in her chest when soft lips respond in kind, starting on their own mission. 

Yet it is not a battle they forge, solely a union found between wavering breaths and the tentative swipe of a curious tongue. 

The Doctor is ignorant to the lung capacity of humankind, however, when Yaz has to reign back for a fresh lungful of oxygen only a handful of seconds later. Her own chest is heaving against her shirts, to her surprise, but her respiratory bypass system has it under control before she even bares it any mind. 

Foreheads pressed together, the Doctor takes her in afresh, noting the pleasant flush to her cheeks she can only predict is mirrored by her own, as well as the slightly swollen nature of her parted lips. 

“Was that okay?” she breathes, surprised to find her voice raspy and low. It’s enough to earn slightly glazed pupils and a heavy swallow she tries her hardest not to feel smug about. 

“Okay?” Yaz echoes, steadying her lungs. “That was —” She blows out a shaky breath, for once the one at a loss for words. 

“I thought so too,” the Doctor hums, her laugh giddy with relief. “Can we — uh — do it again? Would that be alright?”

Searching her pupils and expression for any signs of resistance is pointless when Yaz is the one to initiate the next kiss, this one a touch firmer but no less explorative.

When Yaz’s lips part against her own, she takes her opportunity to sweep her tongue lazily past them and taste her properly, a soft, sighing little noise slipping between the space where mouths meet. There’s a hand in her hair, pushing tentatively through the strands and ghosting short nails against her scalp, and if she were a feline, she’d be purring to her hearts content right about now. 

Nestled close and pressing ever closer, it is difficult to register a whole room still exists around them, especially when she braves a curious nibble to Yaz’s bottom lip and her resulting hum weakens her knees. 

From the top of the steps they’re still perched upon, a clearing of air from Graham’s throat forces them apart in a clumsy entanglement of limbs. 

“Graham!” the Doctor announces once they’ve sprung apart, lips swollen and features a shade of pink. “Graham, hi. What are you doing up so late?” Wait — brain fuzzy from lots of kissing. “Early?” 

“Think the kitchen’s gone walkabout again, Doc,” he croaks, training his expression back to neutral until Yaz sends a sheepish, extremely embarrassed look his way. She’ll have to dissect that reaction later. 

Hands falling to her knees, the Doctor straightens her posture, legs parted ungracefully. “Third left after the swimming pool?”

“ _Left_ , of course it was,” he concedes, deflating with a palm to his forehead, which he slides down with a yawn. “Right, I’m off.”

But before he turns, he shoots Yaz a questioning furrow of old brows which melts into a small smile when the Doctor’s own pinch together. “Congrats, by the way. Sorry about the — uh— I’ll just be off.” 

By the time socked feet disappear down the corridor, the Doctor has returned instinctively back to Yaz’s side, lifting a hand to press a kiss to the thudding pulse beneath dark skin. 

With a giggle, Yaz resettles. “Feels like I’m a teenager who just got caught by their parents.” 

The Doctor’s eyes are comically wide when she draws her lips from her wrist, instead lacing their fingers and dropping them to her lap. “I think Najia would be a lot scarier.” 

“Doctor,” Yaz starts, lips lifting into a smirk which catapults the pit of the Doctor’s stomach to the closest asteroid and back. Amusement drowns her tone. “Are you scared of my mum?”

“I— well, no, of _course_ not. Why would I be—” A single arch of Yaz’s left brow cuts her words off and she huffs out a breath, cheeks burning. “Shut up,” she whispers seconds before she meets her lips again, moulding and forming there like it was meant to be. 

When she’s sure she’s kissed away any more teasing remarks, the Doctor’s forehead comes to rest against Yaz’s own, lashes fluttering while she steadies her hearts and smoothes her thumb over the ridges and dips of her knuckles. 

Yaz’s yawn is poorly hidden and, with a sense of duty, the Doctor pulls back enough to meet her tired eyes. “Think it might be time for bed, PC Khan.”

In fatigue, mischief still reigns. Yaz smirks, open and obvious. 

“No — wait, not like — not like _that._ I didn’t mean —” 

“Just teasing,” Yaz notes, stopping the Doctor’s shovel before she can dig a hole any bigger. “Think you’re right, though. I’m pretty tired.”

Then, tentatively, accompanied by a squeeze to their bound fingers, “Sure you don’t need any company? Must get pretty boring, waiting around for us while we sleep.”

“Boring? Nah,” the Doctor shrugs in dismissal, on hand when Yaz moves to her feet on tired legs. “She’s an old ship. There’s always something to fix.” 

“Go on,” she adds when Yaz hesitates, peeling her hand away and immediately mourning the loss. “Can’t have a tired Yaz.” 

Yaz’s hum of agreement only reinforces the importance of sleep to her fatigued state, and with a smile, soft lips melt in a kiss against her cheek. “Goodnight, Doctor.”

“Goodnight, Yasmin Khan,” the Doctor returns, dopey grin proudly on display when she reaches up to touch the pads of her fingers to the tingling skin Yaz leaves behind. She lingers, propped against the door to the corridor, until the younger woman has turned a corner and disappeared from sight. 

Only when, pirouetting back to face her console room, does she allow her expression to fade and her mind to refill with the hustle and bustle of a train station at rush hour. 

The ship around her hums in reassuring symphony when she leans against the console, crossing her ankles and shoving still warm hands deep into blue pockets. She lifts her gaze to the ceiling, taking in the expanse of engineered gold and blue and losing herself to its grandeur. 

“Do you think I’m being fair?” she questions into the domed space, toying at a loose thread at the opening of her pocket. “To her? To me?”

A series of low beeps pronounce her ship indecisive, but warmth floods her mind like a kind hug when she sighs. “Because it — _that._ That felt good. Right. But —” 

She turns, hunching over the controls and clutching at the surrounding metal. Hanging her head between weighted shoulders, she heaves a breath. “It never lasts, old girl. There’s not enough _time_. There never is.” Her words are directed at three traffic-light style buttons set at her right, green flickering — the shields are safe, for now. 

Oh, the irony. 

“Time swirls around me, there’s never _enough_ … but can’t I give in, properly? Just this once?” Another round of pressure against her mind, another surge of comfort gained. “Not again. This is the last time. It’s going to be bad, when it comes, anyway, even if we’re not — even if we’re not _there_. Even if we’re not together. I can feel it.” 

“But what’s stopping me from being selfish this once?” 

The ship around her sings quietly, sweet whisperings calming the racing beats beneath her chest. A buzzer sounds, signalling a lack of energy in the section beholding the thermo couplings. A perfect distraction from sabotaging thoughts. 

“Thanks, old girl,” the Doctor praises, unlatching and opening a grate at her feet to spy the suspicious party. “For listening, too. Love a good listener— Yaz is a pretty brilliant listener, come to think of it...” 

As quick as it had faded, her smile returns, the flutter in her chest a wary but equally soothing presence. 

Her lips still tingle, nerve endings alive and thriving when she reaches up mid-way through fixing the oil pressure. She knocks the temperature up in Graham’s room, too, after his grumbled complaint from days prior returns to mind. 

She’ll tell him; him _and_ Ryan, sometime tomorrow, get it over and done with so she isn’t fuelled purely by anxiety any longer. The thought brings an unwelcome tremor to her movements, but when she glances at her hands, now oil-streaked and messy, she imagines Yaz’s own clutched to them and suddenly, it’s not so hard a plan to consider. If she is to tell them, will Yaz stay at her side? Will Yaz hold her hand? Buildings can crumble, but _twice?_ That just makes them weak. 

“Ow!” she hisses when her hand slips, struck thoughtlessly between breaths. Shooting a glare at the console before her, she returns to her task. “Thought you were meant to be making me feel better?” 

Another fanfare and an echoing _click_ later, the Doctor raises a brow, but when a custard cream tumbles free and lands at her side, she _laughs_ , bright and breezy and relieved. She briefly wonders if she ought to stop, and to brush her teeth before she next kisses Yaz. 

The reminder alone is enough for the remaining night to pass by in a pleasant haze. 

By morning, she’s leant against the console, head in a book and freshly-brushed teeth greeted by her tongue, when the familiar form of one Yasmin Khan comes ambling in to join the other two occupants. 

Ryan and Graham are still polite in their quiet reservation. 

“Good morning!” the Doctor enthuses, lifting her gaze and _gulping_ when she takes in Yaz’s painted lips. It seems they both had plans. 

Still, when she approaches, they dance around each other like new lovers, cheeks flushing the second their gaze levels (once the Doctor can actually drag her eyes up from her mouth for long enough). 

Wrapped up in nervous energy, she straightens, casting the book aside carelessly and earning a slightly chiding look from Graham. “I’ll pick that up later. Threw the last one into a supernova.”

Off topic, Doctor. Chill out. “Did you sleep okay?” she murmurs quietly when Graham and Ryan start talking between themselves. Much better. Good brain. 

Yaz only hesitates momentarily, seemingly reminded of the unpleasant images last night’s dreams forced upon her. But, with a nod and a slow smile, she’s back. “Fine, yeah. Thanks.” Shyly, she averts her gaze, only to draw it back. “Did you manage to get up to much while we slept?”

“Yeah! Lots, actually. Fixed the thermo couplings, re-wired the heating to the rooms and the swimming pool, cleaned the oil filter so it stopped smelling like off-spinach, and I ate thirty and a half custard creams.” Brushing crumbs from her jumper, she grins, lighting up like a Christmas tree. “New record, I think.” 

“Thirty—” Yaz starts, then shakes her head with a laugh the Doctor melts upon hearing. “Right. ‘Course.”

Another familiar cough draws her from their conversation and back to the rest of the team. “Alright, alright! Sheffield, here we come.” 

Why does Ryan keep staring at her like that? And why are Graham’s cheeks so red?

Anyway, piloting. Flying. Good. She can do that. The TARDIS boots up with a jolt and she glances over her shoulder to bare Yaz a grin just before pulling the next lever. 

“Hold on, fam!” is the only warning they get before the ship lurches and they tumble into the vortex.

It’s just past lunchtime when they land outside of Yaz’s flat complex, engines turning from a wheezing whistle to a low hum in seconds. 

Graham and Ryan’s departure from the ship is hasty. The Doctor frowns in confusion at the indecipherable look Graham sends her way, but pins it down to lack of sleep and — oh. He found them, last night, didn’t he? Ah, humans and their easy embarrassment. 

Reaching out for the console, she maps the route she’s been following every day since — since — No. Don’t think about him. 

Sagging, she leans against the golden metal with a tilt to her head until a familiar hand finds her forearm.

She gets whiplash with the speed at which she turns, craving the contact more than she knows. Coconut and honey and something sweet fill her senses when she meets warm brown eyes, unable to hold back an easy smile. “Hi,” she breathes, because when Yaz looks at her like _that_ ; all soft and tender and kind, words are suddenly not her forte. 

“Hey,” Yaz breathes, swiping her tongue along her bottom lip and _really_ , that isn’t _fair_. “Everything okay?” she adds, finding the Doctor’s hands, interlinking them.

“Yeah,” she replies, because it is, so long as she keeps contact with her like that. “Now I am.” A beat, hazel gaze dropping. “You’re wearing lipstick.”

If Yaz blushes, she doesn’t register it. A hand finds her waist to bring her a touch closer. 

“I am, mm—!” Oops. Was the Doctor meant to wait before she kissed her?

Too late. 

She melts in place the second she comes home, lashes fluttering against her cheek while she leads a slow kiss which leaves her insides deliciously warm and her limbs putty. 

The plastic aftertaste of dark lipstick holds nothing to the sweet tang beneath and she’s momentarily glad she brushed her teeth three times this morning. 

In hindsight, she might’ve gone overboard. She’s never been over-prepared for a kiss before, though. That’s a first. 

She’s pleasantly breathless when she draws away, but Yaz’s arms wind further, reeling her in for a hug she sinks into with a sigh. 

“You’re going back there, aren’t you?” Yaz all but whispers, and the Doctor fights her usual defences off and nods, slow and sheepish. She winds her arms around her waist, beneath her jacket, and tucks closer in the knowledge that she’s allowed to do this now. They are bare to each other, if not in body then in soul. 

“Yaz, I have to — I need to find him,” she insists, predicting to be met with disapproval. “I don’t have a choice.”

But the protests don’t come. 

Instead, Yaz simply brushes a kiss to her hairline and the Doctor sags against her with a faint grumble, head dropping to her shoulder to better breathe in her grounding scent. “Do you want some company? I can come with you, if you like. I wouldn’t mind.”

The Doctor shakes her head before she even thinks it over, forehead warm against the side of Yaz’s neck. She’s seen enough destruction for a human lifespan already, but maybe — her resolve wilts and she raises her head again, seeking out her eyes so she can reply in earnest. “Another time.” 

And she means it, this time. The admission is a surprise even to herself. 

The contact lingers for another few long, wondrous moments before Yaz eases from her arms, catching her hand as she steps back. “I’ll hold you to that.” 

Before their fingers break apart, the Doctor’s lips press against the back of her palm. “Laters, Yaz.” Oh, no. That sounded awful. She’s never saying that again. 

“See you soon, Doctor,” Yaz laughs, stripping the last remnants of contact away and turning on her heel, movements already a touch lighter than in recent weeks. 

Selfishly, the Doctor hopes she has something to do with it.

As quickly as she leaves, the Doctor moves to the controls, piloting with renewed vigour and an airy feel to her mind. Because grief shared affords a light at the end of the tunnel, hope restored; two lonely hearts brought back together, piece by tender piece. 

With a smile sent towards the doors, the Doctor throws down the dematerialisation lever and her ship rumbles into flight.


	2. yaz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She just wants the Doctor to look at her. She just wants the Doctor to be heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which i shout "you're gay" at yasmin khan for approx. 50 pages
> 
> writing this has been an absolute joy and collaborating with amy has been so fun! hope you all enjoy!

The dust of the planet is settling into her pores, her lungs, every crevice of her, as they clamber out from the truck. A harsh sun and a harsher climate. And murderous neighbours. Orphan 55 is not as welcoming as she’d hoped. Then again – if  _ they  _ are the intruders, as the Doctor had said, then can she exactly blame them?

Out into the angry world, her Doc Martens land awkwardly on the uneven ground. Her lungs are aching already with the effort of working in such a hostile atmosphere, but her tank is working fine. She hopes that will continue. If she keeps taking small shallow breaths, then there’ll be nothing to worry about.

If they survive. The menace of the Dregs presses on her sides, like the wind whipping past, and the paranoia is mounting. For all of them. Every sound unaccounted for could be an oncoming death; each one of them flinches. Then what would they do if they were each left to fight, to die? How long would they last?

She tries to catch the Doctor’s gaze, but she gets nothing. Again. So she repeats the same assurances to herself in an attempt to drown out the sound of her own fear, her lonely fear.

With the Doctor bringing up the rear, the group moves as one. Close as she is to Vilma, she wants a moment away from her charge; a moment to remind herself of the oxygen keeping order inside her body, the blood pumping through her legs. She wants a moment to counteract her fear, to appreciate being alive in a world that seems hell bent on killing them.

It doesn’t last. Vilma is unable to think of anyone but her partner; the second Yaz lets go, she totters around as if let loose, crying out again. ‘Benni! Benni! Where are you?’

The first word is out and Yaz is turning, cursing, her speed hampered by the bed of rocks underfoot. She’s too late – Vilma has already sent the Dregs upon them by the time she ungracefully clamps a hand around the struggling woman. The roars are unmistakable, death knells sounding, strangled through an alien throat, and Yaz can feel the panic prey on everyone in the group. Surrounded in an instant, crowding them on the barren patch of land.

The Doctor orders them back into the truck – their only hope. Yaz places a gentle hand on the back of Vilma’s arm, guiding her as quickly as she can to relative safety. As they scamper, she glances back to the Doctor – for a sign of hope, of reassurance,  _ anything _ .

She gets nothing.

Not then, and not when they are huddled together in the truck, like fish in a barrel for the snarling Dreg. They patrol, toying with the trapped.

Yaz concentrates on her breathing – slow, calm, just like she’s been taught – and refocuses her priority onto Vilma.

And then – when they make a run for it outside, to the screams of Hyph3n and Vorm; when she and the Doctor rush to Kane’s aid, and Yaz glances up at the Doctor, her gaze still will not be met. Her frustration ripples through her. Fine – so she’ll help. It’s the best way to keep herself busy, to dispel the sounds of death repeating in her ears. Kane is heavy as Yaz attempts to lift her, and at first she’s not entirely sure that Kane is even trying to stand up. She wouldn’t be surprised. Kane’s stubborn streak has too much selfishness in it to be useful. The exertion makes Yaz grunt quietly; out of the corner of her eye, the green of her oxygen tank is replaced by a worrying orange. But she pushes it out of her mind.

She won’t rest until the others are safe. Even if it kills her – and today, it bloody well might.

Down into the hatch, and the suffocating dust is replaced by a chilling darkness. Adrenaline is doing most of the work her depleted oxygen supply can’t manage; on high alert, their breathing is accelerated – especially when Kane tells Vilma she killed her only-just fiancé, and especially when Kane reaps the rewards of her own short-sightedness.

The Doctor jumps in to dispel the tension between mother and... daughter? But Yaz cannot quite stop her scoff of irony when the Doctor implores the use of ‘passive-aggressive discussion’. She knows the Doctor hears it, because her head starts turning – and it isn’t awful, Yaz thinks to herself bitterly, that she’ll take any reaction she can get? But then the Dreg roars and Ryan and Bella are gone – teleported, not gone, though it’s not much better – and they are running, running for their lives, away from the monsters and the monsters humans make each other into.

Their oxygen tanks fill the dark space with orange light, but Yaz’s is a deeper colour. Not quite red. Still, she won’t think of herself. She is thinking of everything but. She is thinking of Vilma, tethered to this world only by circumstance, now, shaking like a leaf under Yaz’s and Graham’s arms. She is thinking of Ryan, able to breathe but trapped with a woman about to blow their last resort to kingdom come. She is not thinking about herself, or the Doctor, about the Doctor’s orange light, or her coldness; how it makes the dark spaces colder. She is not thinking about her.

‘We’re using too much oxygen,’ comes her voice. It sounds far away.

Even though they’re scrambling to hide, the Doctor refuses to catch up. Yaz bites the bullet and goes to investigate – or drag the Doctor with her to safety, either will do.

‘What is it?’ Her voice sounds meeker than she wants.

‘Nothing,’ the Doctor brushes it off. ‘Keep moving.’ But it’s clearly not nothing – not if the misery plain on her face is anything to go by.

Frustration flares up again, white and hot all of a sudden, but anchored by a pooling desperation, a plea for the Doctor to do more than just talk through the air, to finally let Yaz in, to  _ trust  _ her. But she’s spent the entire day avoiding Yaz, or ignoring her. They have little time, and little oxygen. If the Doctor’s stopped, then it’s important. So she pushes past.

‘I said it’s  _ nothing _ , Yaz, keep  _ moving _ . We don’t have time to linger, Yaz, please.’

Yaz scrambles around her to get a proper look, brushing off the dirt.

Heart in her throat, her stomach sinking. She can barely believe it. But the cogs are turning. The awfulness of it cements her to the spot. She knows, now. She knows. And she wishes – more than anything – that she didn’t.

‘Doctor, that looks like Russian.’ Her voice doesn’t sound like hers. The tears are welling.

‘Novosibirsk,’ the Doctor confirms. ‘It’s a Siberian underground station.’

‘This is Earth.’ Lead in her mouth, disbelief wailing. ‘It can’t be Earth. It’s nothing like it.’ She lies. She knows. She wants an out; for the Doctor to turn to her, smile at her, to pull away the curtain and tell it’s fine. Earth will be fine.

This is one nightmare that doesn’t have to exist.

Finally, the Doctor looks at her. The resignation on her face, tinged with exhaustion, is enough to crush her.

Orphan 55. Her home. Her home isn’t even allowed its own name anymore. It’s only its destruction, now.

Remember the training, remember the training. Yaz closes her eyes and a tear falls. She tries to slow her breathing, to keep herself functioning, to keep herself working and alive. But she is reacting as well as one possibly  _ can _ , she thinks, to the realisation that Earth –  _ her  _ Earth, her  _ home  _ – has torn itself to pieces. And all of its progress – does any of that matter anymore? Is this also a fixed point in time? For the first time she recognises her desperate breaths and panic – but she can’t think of it, can’t think of oxygen wasted on emotion – the Dreg is back and the Doctor gives her a nudge. Then they’re running, they’re hiding, and they need to make it. The tunnel is deathly quiet save the snarl of the Dregs, and the Doctor’s words – ‘Vilma can’t run’ – reverberate even through the haze of Yaz’s grief.

Vilma turns, slowly. Her legs are unsteady, but her voice is surer than ever. ‘Yaz,’ she says. ‘Promise me you’ll run.’

Wide blue eyes, and Yaz thinks them old and kind. All the group are watching the two of them, but she feels one gaze on her back the most. Old. Distant, like the end of an embrace.

Her throat is dry, complaining about the running, the lack of supply. Her oxygen tank is blinking at her; she stuffs it clumsily into her jacket. No one will notice. Heart thumping, her head just starting to go woozy. She swallows, and does her best to sound authoritative. ‘You can’t hide by yourself,’ she answers, and she knows that’s not what Vilma meant, she knows it. But the death of her planet is already on her shoulders, grinding her bones down. She refuses this one. Just this one.

‘Run,’ Vilma insists. Vilma pats her weighted shoulders; Yaz is shaking her head. ‘Stay alive.’

‘Vilma!’ she yells, hand reaching out, to no avail. She watches Vilma head to greet the Dreg; faces death head on with the defiant cry of her fiancé’s name having barely left her lips. 

She watches Vilma being torn to shreds and leaves her behind.

‘Yaz, come on,’ the Doctor whispers, by her side when she wasn’t a moment ago. The Doctor is holding her hand when she wasn’t a moment ago. Yaz heaves a desperate breath through screaming lungs and clings onto the warm body. The reassurance of someone else. The reassurance of the Doctor. Doctor.  _ Where were you, Doctor? _ she wants to scream. Her lungs hurt. ‘ _ Yaz _ .’

‘She just  _ died  _ for us.’ What was the point of her pleading? Just one life saved. Could they not save one life?

They’re moving now. Her limbs are moving. They feel like lead, empty flesh where there should be life.

‘We should’ve saved her, Doctor.’

In the Dreg nest. Black and eerie.

Ruins and flames. Damage of a world she once knew. The pain of her world.

She knows how it happened. She didn’t have to be there. She just knows.

A gasping breath. Red now.

Red and warning. Save just one life.

The rest of the group move and Yaz stumbles, one foot slammed down clumsily in front of another.

The Doctor has let go and she feels unanchored. Shallow breaths. She dare not breathe out.

Where is the Doctor? Where is Vilma, her body? The group is gone. Where is the Doctor?

There. Muttering. Of course she is. Trying to save them all. Confusion and affection and frustration and desperation. Swirling, swirling. Out of focus. She trips.

‘Careful, Yaz.’

_ Oxygen supply level: 1%. You must find breathable air immediately. _

Her body. Warm body. Yaz clutches on.

_ Oxygen supply level: 1%. You must find breathable air immediately. _

Too late. Need to find the others. Need air. Safety. Ryan. Graham.

Doctor.

Red and black. Such black. The terror of the Other Place, DNA strands and electric light in endlessness. She remembers it as she falls, and it’s nothing, nothing like this.

But her blood is still pumping, it’s  _ pulsing _ , and her chest moves. She can breathe. Just. She gasps, dragging the air down into her lungs until she chokes on it. The shock of it all compels her to cling onto whatever gave her life, whatever lingers in the echo of pressure on her lips. She allows herself to be pulled up onto her feet, to register – the Doctor.

‘We have to move. There’s—’ The Doctor winces. ‘No time. Can’t – breathe. Come on.’

The Doctor gave her breath.

Yaz stumbles. An arm around her waist. Doctor, so close. Her face is gaunt, almost hollowed out with exertion. Keeping herself breathing. Good. She needs to.

‘Need t’get to th’dormant Dreg,’ she hears the Doctor hiss.

‘We—’ Yaz wheezes, eyes glossy.  ‘ Need — to get — closer?’

They struggle forwards, the weight of each other both a help and a hindrance. Black and red. Not enough. Save one life.

‘Four.’ No, Yaz won’t do it. She won’t. No oxygen. Yaz coughs. ‘ _ Move _ , Yaz, you need—’

No. No. She thinks she mumbles it. She pitches forward when the Doctor falls from next to her. Let her lie here. Let the Doctor go to the group. Get oxygen. Black and red.

Let her lie here.

Life breathed back into her. Yaz gasps. Colours again. Blood pumping. She tries to cough, but the motion hurts. Breathing again, breathing again. Oh, thank God, she is breathing again. It’s not just the few breaths that the Doctor bestowed upon her – it’s oxygen, glorious oxygen, and a quick loll of her head to her right confirms the hypothesis.  _ Energy replete. _

Triumph bursts from her chest. She’s alive, she’s alive.

And right in front of the Dreg. Suddenly, she’s glad she didn’t cough. It must be breathing out oxygen, if the Doctor has her propped up like this. The Doctor! Her legs unsteady, weak, she nonetheless pushes the Doctor forward to the mouth of the beast, heaving as big a breath as she can. The world sharpens in front of her. There is still a haze about it, but she’s  _ alive _ . All the beauty of it, the feel of her blood rushing around.

Yaz laughs, the quietest she’s ever laughed, but her body isn’t used to the oxygen just yet. She needs to breathe. She hunches over, lets her body recover.

From this position, she can see the Doctor’s own oxygen tank flash green, the two matching.

‘I’m  _ so  _ glad I was right. That would’ve been really embarrassing otherwise.’ A pause. ‘You should’ve  _ told  _ me you were running low, Yaz.’

Yaz’s smile disappears. It feels like a slap in the face. What on Earth should she say to that? She can’t thank the Doctor for saving her life, but in the same breath call her  _ childish _ .

Never mind; she pushes that aside as she stands up. There are other problems – ‘ _ You  _ should’ve saved your oxygen,’ she counters. She moves forward, but the world lurches. Right. Weak legs. Weak head. Red pumping. The Doctor catches her. Feels her response that much closer. She breathes out, low and calming. ‘You almost  _ died  _ just to save me.’

It occurs to Yaz then, and only then, that the Doctor kissed her to save her. The Doctor  _ kissed  _ her. Her hand starts travelling upwards, intending to touch the echo of it.

A distracting thought – but then the Dreg springs to life, its ferocious snarl starting deep in its chest – and the Doctor snaps her head back to Yaz.

‘Run now, argue later.’

Heart in her throat, Yaz replies, ‘Sounds good to me,’ and they run, weak but running, adrenaline-fuelled, pulled on by one another, to the stairwell.

Kane surges past, gun in hand. Always the gun. But Yaz won’t judge her, not this time – it’s clear what she’s about to do.

‘Kane!’ the Doctor yells, but Kane won’t be budged. Just like Vilma; another life sacrificed.

They reach the stairs and the Doctor turns to her. As if to speak. Or to—? She won’t dare think it, can’t jinx it. No words are spoken though, just a hand to hold, and she can’t help but think the Doctor is avoiding her again, as close as they are.

The frustration burns hotter and hotter.

The lifting of Yaz’s heart starts its freefall, falling further when they reach the stairs and the Doctor splits them up again. Yaz is off with Ryan, and she won’t disobey the order at this time. But, at the end of all this, she thinks, when the TARDIS can shield them from the consequences of time, they can talk about it. She will make sure they will talk about it.

The alternative might end up killing her.

‘She ain’t being very honest, is she?’ Ryan’s words, in the aftermath, sink from the air like drowned stones in pockets.

The lights of the communal kitchen are still a little too persistent on her eyes, a little too demanding, after the immersion into darkness they have had to suffer. Hunched over in her chair, folded in on herself, she barely glimpses at the boys. Her eyes ache. She can feel the air slide down the corridors of her throat as she breathes – too much, she can feel it too much – and when she swallows, the lump of flesh collides to send more soreness cascading down the tube.

She rubs her eyes, blinking; unaccustomed. But the lights dim – not dramatically, but enough for Yaz to send the TARDIS a silent thank you.

They’ve travelled so much, she is hanging onto the concept of time by the skin of her teeth. But enough of it has passed, in whatever way, for her to be familiar with some of the TARDIS’ tricks and quirks. What a shame that she cannot fully say the same for her pilot.

On the seat next to Yaz, with his head held up by both his palms, Graham glances at her.

It’s not Yaz that Graham should focus on, she thinks. It’s  _ her _ . Of course it’s her.

‘Yeah,’ Graham sighs, in agreement with his grandson. ‘“Time Lord” don’t mean nothing without a bit of context, eh?’

Ryan re-crosses his arms, then his ankles. He has always preferred to stand up – as he regularly reminds Yaz – though now it seems he is relying on the countertop to keep him upright.

‘D’you think she’s been knighted?’ he wonders. For the first time since they returned, he cracks a half-smile. ‘Like they’ve got their own Queen Liz, waving proper weird and tapping people’s shoulders with a sword?’

Yaz frowns. ‘They’re aliens, Ryan, not from a parallel universe.’

‘Yeah, but you never know, do you?’ Graham jumps in on the opportunity. A bit of levity, while they can. ‘Some people joke she’s a lizard. Her being alien ain’t too big a jump.’

Ryan chuckles.

It dies quickly.

She can picture her. Just along the corridor, still in the console room, the Doctor must be standing around the console, still, flitting about. Checking for something, always something. Yaz can see her in her mind’s eye, the faraway gaze too embedded in another world to spot the rebellious strands of hair obstructing her line of sight. Yaz can picture them so clearly – every strand – it is as if she took over noticing for the Doctor. She’s been a heartbeat away from pushing them back herself, just for some sort of connection.

Some sort of acknowledgement, that they are here, still.

Meanwhile, the Doctor hasn’t looked back. Until—

The question that never left the Doctor’s lips. At the memory, Yaz itches. All she wants to do is know. All she wants is to be right.

Like adjusting the volume dial on a sound system, she tunes herself back into the conversation.

‘Can’t believe she weren’t gonna tell us.’ It’s Graham. Yaz’s mind immediately returns to the Cyrillic on the wall, the stone in her stomach. ‘’Cause I was watching, Yaz, and she was pushing you away.’

Ghost of a touch, lingering in a memory. Yaz nods. ‘I know.’

‘I mean…’ Graham frowns, straining to keep his thoughts together. ‘Was she ever gonna tell us otherwise?’

‘My money’s on “no”,’ Ryan answers. ‘Starting to wonder if she cares, to be honest.’

Yaz immediately turns to him. ‘Ryan,’ she snaps. She remembers he just lost Bella – the Doctor  _ left  _ Bella, and Kane, she reminds herself. She hates that she did, and most of all, Yaz hates that she understands why. She does her best to temper her indignation. ‘Of course she cares.’

‘Really? Then why’s she keeping stuff from us?’

‘You gotta admit it’s a little dodgy, Yaz,’ Graham attempts to mediate.

She swallows, shakes her head. It makes her woozy; her thoughts break into pieces, rattle loosely around her head – but Graham and Ryan wait. At least they are patient with  _ her _ .

‘She saved me, Ryan. She gave me some of her breath,’ she croaks. A cough; her voice – her insistence – strengthens. ‘I think she has a death wish sometimes, but I don’t think she’s stupid enough to leave us behind.’ She adds, ‘She trusts us. On  _ some  _ level, at least.’

Ryan snorts. ‘I’m sorry, Yaz, but that means nowt when she’s like this.’

‘Come on now, son,’ Graham cautions.

‘Why?’ The challenge in her voice is fuelled by her own frustration, at her own defence. What good is a partial trust if it destroys them anyway?

‘’Cause you’re her favourite,’ he says with an air of nonchalance, the  _ ‘duh’  _ inaudible but not unnoticed. He stretches out a hand towards Yaz, pointing to her, and she immediately recedes. But he takes it back, turning his head away only to fix her with a stare again, a stare she can’t evade. ‘And if she can’t talk to  _ you _ , then why’d she talk to the rest of us?' He shakes his head. 'We're putting our lives in her hands. We've got people waiting for us back home, but we're here travelling with someone who can't talk to us. Why ain’t you bothered about that?'

‘Of course I’m bothered about it,’ she retorts, ‘I’m just not trying to make her out to be this… complete villain.’

‘What’s up, gang?’ The sudden intrusion of the Doctor’s voice shoots through the room like a bullet. Immediately, defences are up: Ryan schools his face into cool ambivalence, and Graham occupes himself by dragging his hands down his face. 

The toughest defence of all is the Doctor’s, all smiles and bouncing on her toes as if she is not plagued by her own mystery affliction. Still, it wouldn’t be enough to fool strangers. It is too strangled, too loud against the quiet of the kitchen. They’ve spent far too long wondering what went wrong, what  _ they’ve  _ done wrong – if she believes it, then she is fooling no one but herself.

After a quick glance at Yaz, the Doctor looks pointedly at the boys. So much so that it hurts. Yaz’s heart sinks. Still searching for that question, burning her lungs, her throat, her lips.

Clocking that neither of the boys are going to offer an excuse, Yaz jumps in to save the day. ‘Oh, we were just discussing the best flavour of—’

‘Ice cream,’ bursts from Ryan’s mouth, just as Graham interrupts with, ‘Crisps.’

Ryan closes his eyes briefly.

For a second, a horrible second, the Doctor can’t keep up her facade. She collapses in on herself, her spine unable to bear the weight of the secrecy. The fake chipperness falls away, to reveal a concoction of hurt and bitterness, and Yaz’s heart breaks for her all over again.

But then it’s gone, it’s over, and the Doctor has recovered herself. ‘Right,’ she says, and it is carefully spoken, the traces of hurt hard to find.

It’s not fair, Yaz knows, for all this concern to lead nowhere. Worse still that she doesn’t know the original reason for it. But when the Doctor lets her guard down around Yaz – the moments few and far between – she feels the fear behind her eyes.

And she knows how that feels. So perhaps she is a little more lenient.

‘You can join us, if you like,’ she offers. Yet another olive branch. She’ll be running out of them soon.

‘I was actually coming to find you,’ the Doctor replies, voice all meek and mild. ‘You mind popping to the med-bay with me? Quick check-over?’

A flare of frustration hits her square in the chest, and for a moment she is speechless. Of course. Of course she doesn’t take it. Not even after—

‘She’s got a point, mate,’ Ryan wades in. ‘I mean, you  _ did _ almost suffocate to death today.’

She shoots him a look. Whose side is he on?

‘ _ Ryan _ . A bit more sympathy wouldn’t go amiss.’

So much for “dodgy”. Yaz contains her sigh, only just. ‘Fine, I’ll come.’ With this announcement, she stands, slowly, gathering her strength as the world spins mildly. Her breathing comes louder, deeper. When the spinning halts, she looks up to the Doctor, pinning her to the spot with her words. ‘So long as you get checked out too.’

The Doctor’s nod is a lot quieter than she’d like.

Yaz is fine, just headachey, and she tells the Doctor this. But the alien insists, to assuage her guilt, Yaz suspects: her explanation of getting ‘so lost’ in her brain is passable, if Yaz is in a forgiving mood.

Is she?

The question still burns.

The lights are still bright here in the medical bay. Yaz blinks, but the lights won’t dim, not while they need a once-over. Maybe, she thinks, the two of them need the exposure.

‘Take a seat.’ A gentle order from the Doctor living up to her name.

Yaz makes her way, slowly, to the bed. The room is perfectly clinical, suffocating with it. The bed is immaculate. So unemotional. Turning to the Doctor, watching her, she notes the unemotion of the place. Perfect for the Doctor, she thinks, the thought twisting painfully in her stomach.

‘Up,’ the Doctor prompts, and Yaz obliges.

When she hauls herself up, it doesn’t even creak. Cool sheets underneath her, cool air sharp around her, and Yaz breathes.

She watches, again, as the Doctor approaches, stethoscope dug out of the vast caverns she calls her pockets. Makes sense, she notes. Her heart is pumping oxygen around her veins, working again after the starvation, but she knows already that it is a little too fast. Always around the Doctor, always. She just hopes she doesn’t notice; brushes it off like the flyaway hair, unimportant.

She breaks her own heart with that thought.

‘I’m just going to check your hearts —  _ heart _ .’ A pause stews in the space between them. ‘Make sure everything’s in order. Standard practice.’

Standard. Right. She’s definitely reading too much into it – she chides herself. But wouldn’t it have been nice for the Doctor to want to talk for once?

She can’t help her small inhalation when the metal presses on her chest, a sharp quick cold. Her body recoils; the defences jump up, goosebumps erupting.

At her hiss, the Doctor flinches, regret pooling across her morose expression. ‘Sorry,’ she says, barely more than a whisper. ‘Bit cold. Should’ve warned you.’

Exhalations of warmth, thanks to their close proximity. Warmth despite their distance. A few strands of hair have escaped again, to fall down the middle of the Doctor’s face; the need to lift her arm, to brush them away, surges through Yaz’s body. But she battens it down. She can’t. She  _ won’t _ .

She’s so tired of this. Never closer, never further away.

‘Doctor,’ she tries. Come on, Doctor, come on.

Can’t she hear the heartbeat? She’s listening to Yaz’s interior – can’t she hear what she  _ wants? _

‘Sorry! I’ll be quick as I can, promise.’ The nervous edge pushes her further into chipper.

_ No.  _ It almost escapes Yaz’s lips.

‘Did you know the first stethoscope invented was made of wood?’ the Doctor continues. ‘I love wood. Sonic doesn’t.’

‘ _ Doctor _ .’ No point bothering to hide her frustration. Maybe it might make the Doctor  _ listen  _ to her. It’s worked before.

‘Alright, alright, I’m done.’ Letting the stethoscope fall to hang round her neck, she twirls off into more avoidance. Yaz isn’t listening, isn’t caring, as the Doctor spins away. Avoiding her.

Her disappointment reaches new depths, the stone in her stomach sinking lower.

She still won’t look at her. For God’s sake,  _ look at her _ .

The Doctor looks down at Yaz’s legs, frowning.

‘Doctor,  _ look at me _ .’

Once. Once is all she needs. Just to reach out. Just to break through.

She still won’t.

Yaz slams a hand down beside her, lightly, searching for any sign, any possibility of reaching the Doctor. Layers of brick on brick, layers of walls, a past locked away only to destroy the Doctor from the inside.

Not for the first time, Yaz is furious. But she is terrified. For her fear, for what it might do to them.

She’s terrified that if she doesn’t speak now, then any bridge to the Doctor might crack and splinter and break. Forever.

‘ _ Please _ ,’ she begs. The boiling inside her is rising.

And the Doctor looks up.

A hint of self-preservation, buried in the rubble of devastation, glints in the Doctor’s hazel eyes at last.

All the angels sing. Yaz lets free a heavy sigh and sends a quick thank you to God.

Though now she is looking at Yaz, so totally vulnerable, she doesn’t quite know what to say. Like this, the Doctor is a frightened animal, trapped and caged. One wrong move and the trust will be severed.

Heart in her throat, her shoulders collapse, and she pleads, ‘ _ Talk  _ to me.’

The Doctor closes her eyes – Yaz’s heart jolts – but they open again, equally as pleading. ‘Yaz.’ She opens her mouth to justify herself.

‘No,’ Yaz cuts her off, shaking her head. ‘Don’t explain this away. Please. We  _ miss  _ you, Doctor. We don’t know what’s happened. Is it something we did?’

The Doctor moves forward, closer to Yaz, and now her eyes are wider in her earnestness. It is a refreshing sight. ‘No,’ she interrupts Yaz. It is firm, but there is a war raging in her gaze, so many things she can’t bear to say. Yaz wishes she could reach them, pluck them out from green-brown irises like bowstrings; to unravel them, relieve the Doctor of their burden. ‘It’s nothing to do with you three.’

‘Then why can’t you talk to us?’

‘Because it’s nothing to do with you!’

The relief is tangled up with hurt. Yaz leans away from the Doctor’s ferocity.

The Doctor can only bristle with this for so long. At Yaz’s wide eyes, she sags. ‘Sorry.’ Her voice has none of its previous fervour. ‘Sorry, that wasn’t fair. It’s not your fault.’

‘No, it’s not,’ Yaz reminds her. ‘But we’re still  _ here _ . I’m still here, Doctor. It just… doesn’t feel like you are.’

Miserable, the Doctor looks away.

‘Can you at least talk to us? Let us know what’s hurting you?’

Yaz can tell when the defences come springing up again. The breaking is laced with steeliness, the self-destructive kind. ‘You wouldn’t under—’

No. She knows that, she knows. Never has the Time Lord felt more alien to her – of course she knows. ‘Don’t,’ Yaz cuts her off, arms folded, and the Doctor’s protective instinct withers. ‘Doctor,  _ don’t _ .’

The Doctor folds in on herself, hands disappearing inside sleeves and hesitant eyes meeting Yaz’s. Persistence, then, is sometimes enough. Eyes close briefly, gathering all the strength she has.

And Yaz watches, not for one second daring to look away; like glimpsing a rare creature spotted in the wild, one glance towards a distraction might scatter the Doctor’s honesty away forever. All her journeying will be for naught.

‘It’s – it’s hard to explain, when you haven’t lived through the things I have; when you haven’t  _ seen _ what I’ve seen,’ Her breath is shaky. At the thought, Yaz remembers to breathe out herself, the rising crescendo of her heartbeat in her ears given a chance to return to a normal volume. ‘I’ve witnessed so much, Yaz. Loss, pain, regret…’ She swallows. ‘ _ Love _ . You couldn’t possibly understand.’

‘Try me,’ she demands. Both her hands clasp round the edge of the bed, her back straight. Levelling her gaze, keeping the Doctor exactly where she needs to be. She won’t look away if the tears form in the Doctor’s eyes. She won’t look away  _ because  _ there are tears forming in the Doctor’s eyes.

The Doctor, who for so long keep their heads up, their feet exploring; who gave happiness something to aspire to. The Doctor of hope, of  _ Yaz’s  _ hope.

For the Doctor to break so severely, the knife wound must have been deep.

‘I took my eye off the ball for too long. I got distracted making friends and showing off, trying to  _ impress _ you,’ she says. Yaz’s breath catches; eyes wander where they shouldn’t. But not now, not now. ‘I should’ve known. I should have  _ expected _ this. I just thought – after all this, I thought—’ A sigh. ‘I thought that I might’ve come out on the other side; that nothing else could disrupt this. Us. Our adventures.’

It sounds like wishful thinking, in retrospect, the desire to outrun the inevitability of life. For such a wise, supposedly experienced person – shouldn’t the Doctor have known this? Shouldn’t she know the end result, however it came about?

Maybe that was exactly it. Having one’s problems catch up to them still means they ran. And the exhilaration of it, the distraction, all that lightness – all how the Doctor wishes she could be. Without the crumbling. Untroubled.

Yaz firmly pushes the thought of the police station out of her head.

But everything has a consequence, no matter how it is expressed. And the good cannot last forever. Innocence and naivety buckle at the first infliction of pressure.

How long did it take for Yaz’s naivety to crumble during her year of hell? One look at Izzy Flint’s face, and she knew. That was all it took. Izzy’s decision was already made, clear as day in her eyes: she planned for Yaz to hurt. A lashing out like that took thought, and time, and cowardice. And so everything fell to pieces.

Oh. Wait.

‘The Master,’ Yaz alights on the revelation. When the Doctor flinches, she knows she’s hit the mark. ‘He has something to do with this, doesn’t he?’ Of course, it makes sense now. ‘You’ve been off since we met him.’

The Doctor nods. It’s all she gets. One mention of him and she’s back to hiding.

Yaz suppresses her sigh. Nothing like this is ever easy, she knows. Still, there are so many questions – more questions than answers. The more she knows, the more she knows she can help.

‘But he’s trapped, right? He’s still stuck in the other dimension?’ she continues.

That… other place. She does her best to keep herself still, but her grip on the bed tightens. Every time she thinks of it, she remembers the cold, wrapping around her like tendrils. Caressing her sides, the corners of her. She breathed it in, all the lifelessness, and it does its best to stay. The rest of her, so full of warmth, freezes when the coldness seeps in.

How could nothingness be so  _ cold? _

Cold and dark. Nothing like the starvation of oxygen, now she knows she survived it; but the terror is still the same, deep-set and dangerous.

Yaz wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy. Except, perhaps, for the Master. If… ‘He’s still there, isn’t he?’

She has to know. For the Doctor, more than anything.

‘I can’t get there via the TARDIS,’ the Doctor starts. The hesitation doesn’t fill Yaz with a lot of hope. ‘She doesn’t like dimension-hopping, not at her age. So, I don’t know, Yaz.’

And the anxiousness pours in, another freezing of her insides. A man so capable of sending people to that awful place should not be left to burn everything else.

But she breathes in, straightens her back again. ‘We’ll find him,’ she says, because at least one of them has to hope. Otherwise it’ll all crumble. ‘He can’t stay off the radar forever.’

‘You don’t know him like I do,’ the Doctor counters immediately, and all her age seeps through. Loss and pain and regret. ‘He’s from home. He’s clever and he’s sneaky and he’s  _ always _ prepared,’ the Doctor continues. In any other conversation, those words would’ve been infused with pride. Now it cracks under the weight of its own implications. All that loss and pain and regret.

A betrayal, then. Of the highest standard. The Doctor’s “best enemy” – she wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on the run, avoiding responsibility for previous crimes. The madman unhinged, leaving them on a plane to die, the madman who shrinks people as if they were toys, and casts them aside for fun. He must be despised throughout the universe. He must be haunted by them, hunted. Would only be right.

Yaz frowns. ‘Can’t your people sort him out? If the TARDIS can’t find them, then they can, surely? If they’re as clever as you?’

But instead of half-hopes and half-plans, all she gets is silence. And stillness. Nothing but despair, tumbling further and further in the depths of the Doctor’s hazel gaze, a gaze that the Doctor can’t keep. She looks away and it all tumbles further, deeper into the darkness of grief. She must be so scarred by so much, but this feels raw and new and fresh. Betrayal burns bright, and hot, and stokes the grief of something lost. Something lost anew.

The way she’d said ‘home’. Yaz’s heart plunges before she completes the thought, and shoulders slump further. God, she wouldn’t wish this on anyone. She can hear the hurt she was shielded from, and things slot into place.

Home. It’s said in a breath, a cracking, creaking release. But the pain on her face is open and wounded, loss oozing down her cheeks like tear stains. Then it’s a release she didn’t want to make, Yaz realises. Instead, it’s a whisper; a prayer. It’s a goodbye.

It must be this. The grief makes sense, though she doesn’t quite know why. She doesn’t quite know how this works with the Master in the picture; she doesn’t know the set of steps that took the Doctor to this place. But she knows, and, by God, she  _ wishes  _ she didn’t. 

She said they could visit sometime. A promise broken upon conception. Holding onto the embers in the hope they’ll make a fire again.

‘Doctor,’ she tries. The Doctor won’t meet her gaze – a confirmation as much as anything. ‘Doctor, why can’t they help?’

The Doctor refuses to look at her.

‘Doctor, please,’ Yaz begs. Out of ideas, she reaches out. Her hand clasps round an arm shrouded in white.

The Doctor is shaking, but resolute; internalising what destroys her. This stillness is a wall.

Yaz hopes her embrace can dismantle it again.

‘We’ve got so far today,’ she breathes. No response, but a tear breaks free on that perfect, porcelain face. ‘I want to hear you. I want to listen.’

In the moments it takes for the Doctor to regain her voice, time floats around them. In the in-between echo, space and time is crushed, moulded, rippling around the dimensions of the TARDIS. In these moments, entire civilisations rise and fall. Planets discovered, stars burn out, and stories are conjured anew.

It courses through them, the fragility of time and space. Yaz can hear the acknowledgement in the whirr of the TARDIS. And she waits, lets it pass through her: listens to the wailing tones of the ship, the afflicted clicks and beeps and wheezes like sighs. And she waits.

She wonders if the TARDIS is grieving too. She wonders if she’ll help the Doctor, as much as she can.

Of course she will.

In all that time – all time and no time, seconds and centuries – the Doctor makes her choice. Run away, or into listening.

'He burned it.' Her tone is six feet lower than usual. In her voice rings the bells, the mourning that was refused for them. 'He burned it all. Gallifrey is gone. I can't save it.' She collapses around the words, with only Yaz to hold her up.

This much closer, she can see – hear, feel – the extraordinary pressure the Doctor’s lungs are under. Struggling to keep her breathing anything less than rapid requires great gasps of cool air, the oxygen hastily extracted. Any lapse in concentration, and she would buckle under it, ghosts filling the cavities with nowhere else to go.

Yaz, too, struggles with the enormity of it; she breathes through her nose, her mouth pressed in a line. Just a little too fast to be reassuring. Already, in the back of her mind, she hears the screams of people she never knew. And the closer the Doctor gets, the louder they wail.

Children, mothers, fathers, grandparents. Market stall vendors and engineers. Teachers. Students. Businesspeople. Politicians and cleaners. Everyone.

Innocent.

Rising hills and gorgeous caverns, and sparkling bodies of water. Trees that delved deep into soil and animals that would shelter in them. And their songs, all the songs.

A planet full of people is a planet full of people, whatever species they are. A planet in which every glimpse constituted a memory for a someone, somewhere, once. A planet that featured in dreams, and nightmares, and the sighs of longings. People laughed and they learnt; they raged and they cried.

People fostered a sense of home there: of comfort, and safety. People learnt what that meant,  _ home _ , for the very first time of their lives, on that planet.

And they all died there. Innocent.

The thought of the same happening to her – of returning to see the ruins of Sheffield, England, Earth – tears her apart. Builds her nightmares. If the roles were reversed, and it was Yaz, Ryan and Graham—

She discards the conditional in that sentence. Suddenly, she understands why the Doctor tried to shield her from the writing on the wall.

But at least she gave them  _ hope _ . Faced with the despair newly-etched onto the Doctor’s weary bones, Yaz can’t imagine she carries that same hope for herself, or her planet.

‘This is a time machine,’ she says. Pointing out the obvious, but there must be a reason why the Doctor hasn’t tried to rescue it yet. It can’t be the end of Gallifrey, surely? ‘Can’t you just go back and save it?’

The words leave her mouth and a buzzing starts low in her chest. If, on the off chance that the Doctor can save her home, then by God is Yaz going to come along. Damn the check-up; the Doctor would need someone by her side.

She always has, Yaz is starting to learn.

Her hope dies in the shake of the Doctor’s head. ‘Gallifrey – it works on a different axis. Time there is too unstable, too dangerous, even for my liking. That isn’t possible.’ Though she hides her head, neither of them miss her sigh; like a prayer, a goodbye.

‘It’s gone, Yaz.’ So the tears fall. As they do, her face crumples, and eyes Yaz cannot help but look for now disappear with their pain.

Yaz’s rage at the Master is white-hot, burning her chest when she thinks of it. But she tucks it away for later, when she has time to process. What matters now is the uninterrupted fall of the tears in front of her.

If Gallifrey cannot be coaxed back to life, then it is a reassurance that the Doctor is there to mourn it. The ghosts have made the right choice, choosing this survivor to cradle them.

What an awful end, she thinks. And what an awful burden.

Yaz squeezes the Doctor’s arm, so lightly she at first doesn’t think the Doctor will register it. Still, she does notice it; a gentle reminder of where she is. 

Around them, the machinations of the TARDIS whir softly, an encouraging whisper.

‘I know I couldn’t  _ possibly _ comprehend what you’re going through right now,’ Yaz begins, imploring. Startled, the Doctor meets her gaze, blinking still. The film of tears resting on her bottom eyelids are cleared away; though her eyes remain red and watery, the Doctor looks at Yaz resolutely. ‘But you have to know that I’m here for you.  _ We _ are here for you. We’re here to listen – for you to talk to – and to help, always.’

Hazel gaze and a keen recognition. The present is not so alone.

The relief of finally finding solid ground on which to reach the Doctor blooms light in Yaz’s chest, though it is tattered round the edges from the revelation it required. But all of that work is worth it. For the Doctor, always.

‘Please don’t shut us –  _ me _ – out like that again,’ Yaz continues. She arches an eyebrow, but she smiles too, small and knowing. ‘I think you underestimate how much we care about you.’

She wants to add an  _ ‘I’ _ in there; herself in there, in her entirety. The caring that her anger suppressed threatens to break that differentiation free; the question still burns in her throat.

But not now, not now. The Doctor nods, wordlessly, and what was so far away feels so close again. Cradled.

Yaz’s smile widens. ‘Okay, I did say you need a check-up too. So…’ She reaches forward to take the stethoscope from around the Doctor’s neck. As she does so, the sides of her fingers brush against the Doctor’s skin, the protrusions of her collarbones, prominent against the smoothness of her form.

It startles the Doctor: a flicker of heat in her eyes is short-lived but powerful. Yaz hopes the Doctor doesn’t hear her sudden inhale.

‘I’m fine, Yaz, honestly,’ the Doctor says, but there is no move away, no attempt to obstruct, just the haziness of grief still slowing her movements.

Yaz shakes her head as she clutches the instrument to her chest. ‘Sit,’ she echoes the Doctor’s words from earlier. She gives her no chance of out-debating her, no chance of wheedling away the order.

She commits to her own instruction by standing up again. Her headache reminds her of its existence, but it has weakened to an afterthought, at most. The dizziness, too, is much-reduced. Which is good - she needs all her concentration right now. The Doctor obliges her instruction; hands cupping the edge of her bed, her legs swinging the first chance they get.

It takes a concerted effort for Yaz to wrestle her smile into something easy, pleasant, and not ridiculously enamoured. She breathes out slowly, steels herself, and plugs the stethoscope into her ears. The nodules are cold and unforgiving, but it’ll do.

A step closer, and her senses are assaulted. In her space, the sharpness of peppermint and the underlying richness of engine oil fill her lungs. Even in the dark moments, to Yaz, the Doctor’s defining scents bring a touch of familiarity, blossoming light. Her warmth resonates from her in waves, an invitation. This, too, is a comfort; like the first touch of a blanket on a long winter’s day.

Happiness had something to aspire to, she remembers thinking; and one day, she hopes, it will again. The inherent comfort locked in the Doctor’s form brings Yaz to a feeling of home. Nestled right there, in two hearts.

She presses the metal disc of the stethoscope on the Doctor’s chest, taking in the sight of her rising chest, the regular breaths. No  _ thump-thump  _ though. A hiss – she looks up.

‘Left a bit,’ the Doctor suggests. ‘Two hearts, remember?’

Of course. Those two homely hearts. Yaz suppresses a tut aimed at herself, and adjusts accordingly.

To her delight, a heartbeat greets her efforts, loud and clear and  _ strong _ , still pumping blood around the Doctor’s body. Swept up in the surprise, her eyes lift upwards, her gaze alighting on the Doctor’s. She’s never done this before, wasn’t prepared for how much wonder she’d feel; at the sound of life working ceaselessly, working in spite of every moment that has wished for otherwise; at the sound of that special heart, special to her, and the gratitude that surges through her veins, so strong it may replace her own blood with relief.

The Doctor’s gaze dips lower for a moment. The strong rhythm trips over itself. Yaz almost forgets how to breathe.

She can’t be—

No, not now. Not now.

Still, her smile refuses to be dampened. It flashes, small, proud,  _ hopeful _ , as she transfers the stethoscope disc to the other half of the Doctor’s chest.

‘Just there.’ The Doctor guides her hand to the correct position. She doesn’t let go, the warmth of life embracing the curve of Yaz’s wrist.

Yaz can’t decide whether the Doctor knows she is holding on.

‘Just testing you,’ she lies, easily packaged as a tease that the Doctor must see right through. She listens to the  _ thump-thump  _ resonating in her ears – strong again, though maybe a little too fast? – but it reminds her of the heartbeat’s previous trip. And her breathlessness.

The Doctor’s thumb moves, once, then back again. And repeats. Yaz won’t look her in the eye. Her focus travels downwards, back to the hand, the length of her fingers, the peach-white skin interrupted here and there by patches of red from the wear and tear of the day. With her fingers wrapped gently around Yaz’s hand, the ligaments are pulled tight, stretched across the back of her hand to belie a network of blue underneath.

And still, that thumb; its tender ministrations. Does she realise?

‘Course,’ the Doctor responds to Yaz’s tease. ‘So what’s the diagnosis, Yasmin Khan?’

No. The tips of Yaz’s ears are burning. No, she doesn’t think the Doctor knows.

Yaz detaches herself from the task, and the movement forces the comforting weight of the Doctor’s hand on her wrist to slip away. She misses it when it goes, that patch of her arm now unaccustomed to the cool, sterile air of the med bay. The warmth lifts off slowly, like steam, lingering.

Yaz blinks herself back into the conversation, focusing on the Doctor. ‘Apart from being way too smug, you’re all good.’ If she keeps her tone light, her eyes trained forward, then the absence of the Doctor’s touch won’t feel like a presence.

‘Didn’t know you could measure that through a stethoscope,’ the Doctor quips – though her face constricts as she alights on a thought, her stethoscope once again the object of her attention. ‘Huh. Must be from the late 2050s.’

Fondly, Yaz rolls her eyes, and gets a grin in response.

‘You should probably get some rest,’ the Doctor says, just as the grin quietens down. Bravado and gusto calmed down into a weighty thoughtfulness. ‘Tough day.’

Only then does Yaz remember her own body and its limitations. The last tendrils of headache leave their mark in a dry heaviness, permeating her entire being. Even her legs are complaining from standing up, and it wasn’t for long.

But her mind is still racing.

‘I’m fine, honestly.’ When the Doctor starts to refuse, Yaz interrupts her. ‘Promise,’ she insists. Bed is the last thing she wants now, a veil of unconsciousness barring her from the day’s events. Not least because it entails questions from Ryan and Graham, who must be wondering why Yaz left and hasn’t yet come back. Unsurprisingly, she is no longer in the mood to whisper like conspirators about the Doctor, not when she knows the depth of it – or some of it, at least. ‘Think I’ll hang around in the console room with you for a bit, if you don’t mind?’

Her muscles groan independently to each other at the thought of having to sit down on those cold, unforgiving stairs – all sharp lines and hard material – but she figures it’s worth it.

She’s sat through worse moments.

The Doctor’s defences do not last long in the face of Yasmin Khan. ‘Of course. I can always do with a helping hand.’ At Yaz’s relieved smile, she adds, ‘Can’t promise you won’t get bored though.’ As if that could deter Yaz from her decision.

She’s out of the med bay in seconds. Too sterile an air, and she wants to keep breathing in the closeness of the Doctor, the familiarity of her coming back to Yaz. She looks back at the Doctor, strolling behind her with hands in pockets, and has the urge to tell her something. Anything – declarations, intentions. Anything.

Instead, she smiles.

She settles on a quiet, ‘Thank you,’ once they reach the console room. Too much, and not enough, all of a sudden. She busies herself with sitting down on the honeycomb stairs.

She knows the Doctor is settling back into her place at the console, her fingers caressing nodules and levers with such tenderness, it is as if she thought she’d never return.

‘For what?’ she asks, a little too light to be casual.

Yaz knows the Doctor is looking at her. When she looks back, there’s fear intermingled with relief. All the things never said; Yaz’s heart throbs with them.

‘For letting me stay,’ she answers. She remembers a few words she'd uttered, almost without thought, however long ago it must have been now. For letting her stay alive, Yaz wants to add. For saving her life, quite a few times over.

The Doctor smiles. Already, it is built with artifice in mind; a preoccupation in the later hours of the night. A performance for her friends.

That, Yaz understands.

Coming back to the console room is like coming home; at least, that must be how it feels to the Doctor, in a TARDIS that – Yaz suspects – must be never-ending. The familiarity of old buttons, hands gliding via muscle memory to pull and press mechanisms, repeating instincts so old she can’t ganuage the number of years. Even in stasis, there is plenty for the Doctor to do: examining, and planning, and re-examining.

Water levels in the pool. And the jacuzzi. An empty custard cream dispenser. The brakes. Temperature in the vacated third library. Plenty other things, switching from one language to another; from English to the circles that used to decorate the ridge of the console platform. Galli—Gallifreyan, Yaz thinks?

Indecipherable circles – and the Doctor, hunched over, unmoving, looking at them.

Yaz can see her face from where she’s sat, in the reflection of the console screen. She doesn't know what the writing is, popping up on the screen in floating circles. All she sees is the pulled-down corners of her mouth, wide eyes full of past gloom and future grief.

Yaz clasps the sides of her arms. ‘Doctor,’ she says.

The Doctor jumps out of her skin. On the way down, her hand finds purchase on a lever.

‘Yeah?’ comes her voice, all lightness. A worn smile reflected. She pushes down on a lever and makes to turn around – her usual twirl – when the TARDIS jolts and tilts to one side.

Yaz grabs onto the railing immediately to her right, a small yelp escaping.

‘Whoops!’ The Doctor rights herself and hauls the level back up. ‘Sorry, old girl.’ The TARDIS levels, though a sharp round of bleeps sound out; low, almost like a growl.

The Doctor tuts, turning to rest her back on the console side. ‘I said I was sorry!’

‘Could you show me what some of those things do?’ Yaz requests. The Doctor blinks at her. ‘I’m not asking to learn how to fly the TARDIS. Have a feeling I won’t be able to do that ever, probably. But I’m curious. I’d like to know.’ At the sight of the Doctor’s face, she reminds her, ‘You don’t have to, you know.’ Still, the consideration. ‘I just thought you’d like the conversation.’

She can see the Doctor wrestle with it, her cards close to her chest.

‘You won’t understand most of what I spout,’ she says.‘The technology’s way more advanced than human capabilities.’

Yaz almost tuts. ‘Even better.’

The Doctor pulls a somewhat satisfied face – the visual equivalent, Yaz thinks, of a  _ ‘Hmph’  _ – and clears her throat. She twizzles round to face the console again, her feet light enough to perfect the pirouette.

‘Right, then!’ she starts. ‘This –’ the Doctor points to the lever she’d yanked half a minute earlier ‘– is the handbrake.’

Yaz chuckles. ‘Sounds proper human,’ she notes. Squinting, she teases, ‘What was that about the technology being more advanced?’

‘Oi!’ the Doctor protests. ‘Don’t be cheeky! I’ll have you know it’s one of the only Earth-like things on the console!’ But it’s not a reprimand, not really.

Especially when Yaz’s laughter dies down, and the two of them are left smiling at each other.

She remembers the heartbeats through the stethoscope. The little fumble.

There is an echo of it now, in her own chest.

Then the Doctor clears her throat. Her move to the next pulley is swift. Stiff.

Yaz clutches at her elbows.

‘This is the anti-grav stabiliser,’ the Doctor continues quickly. ‘Had a few of these in our times, haven’t we?’ She pats the side of the console tenderly. ‘Been a bit unreliable.  _ However _ , I’ve finally figured out what was going on, though, when you and the lads were enjoying the Apollo 11 launch. Hopefully. And this –’ the Doctor nudges a button, positioned higher than all the rest. A grumble sounds from within the console itself, the crystal, and the Doctor steps on the lever near her foot. Out pops a custard cream, for her to snatch up and hold aloft like a trophy. ‘Activates emergency biscuits. Don’t touch that unless I tell you to. Also don’t let Ryan touch it either.’ She pops the custard cream in her mouth, chewing and swallowing too quickly to savour the taste.

Another spin. As she pirouettes, her arms follow the lead of her legs, the spiral lengthening all the way to her fingers. Accidentally graceful, while her mind is a million miles away. The Doctor has already landed on another gadget to talk about, but Yaz's brain is glitching. Like a record jammed on a second of music, in her mind's eye she watches the movement over and over again; from the ripple of coattails to her slender fingers completing the pose.

Fingers that settled over her collarbone not half an hour ago. Skin to skin searching. 

Yaz swallows the rush of attraction down. Her gaze lifts to see the Doctor talking to her still. If she notices, she doesn't say anything.

Another explanation, this time a pulley. The Doctor is settling into her role, spouting out words that Yaz can’t understand and probably never will. The Doctor was right – it’s technology she couldn’t dream of back home, mechanics she won’t be able to fathom. Not that mechanics were ever her strong point.

As far as she’s concerned, the TARDIS gets them to where they need to be. And it’s home: safe, away from all the monsters banging at the door.

She watches the Doctor, intent on describing every little inconsequential quirk of the TARDIS console. Unthinking and hellbent on it.

Almost all of the monsters, then.

There is a lot on the console to talk about, all of it complicated. Just as Yaz thought. She takes all of it in as best she can, asking questions if she can wrap her head around it. But she loses concentration somewhere between the fourteenth button and the light switch panel. The world keeps spinning; her world. Thoughts of heartbeats and surges of emotion, eclipsing her.

But the lights dim and her head rests on the rail. She listens instead to the sound of everything in their abstract senses: the gentle thrumming of the TARDIS, like mechanised breathing, and the buttery lilt of the Doctor’s voice.

The exhaustion of carrying a forlorn future is on her shoulders, in her bones, her lungs, now. Oxygen escaped her, but it is regulated here: her breathing steadies out and slows, lights dimming until the TARDIS, the Doctor, and all of its fragile peace, fades to black.

She blinks, and almost everything is the same: the glow of the crystal, the honeycomb stairs still a pain in her arse. Everything is still, and quiet, nothing moved, nothing unsettled. 

Time must have passed, she thinks, as she eases her stiff bones off the stairs, because the lights are a little richer, a little redder. The air hangs strangely, like bated breath. How long has she been out?

The Doctor, too, has stopped talking to her. Instead, she is sat underneath the console, a wrench and two pliers clustered around her person. Already there are grease stains on her white-grey coat, and the smell of electricity permeates the room. Preoccupied with the tinkering, the Doctor’s head has disappeared behind the wiring, green and blue webs of uncoordinated scribbles masking the upper half of her body. A spark, and a small burst of light, and a sharp  _ crackle  _ fills her ears: the Doctor hisses, and a hand emerges, shaking away the sudden burn.

Yaz tiptoes closer, her legs protesting.

It is only after her fifth step that the Doctor remembers Yaz’s presence. She interrupts her own ministrations with an, ‘Ooh!’, abandoning her tinkering and pushing against the ridge of the console to slide forward, and return to the open space of the room.

The TARDIS gongs. An arrival. Yaz didn’t realise they were flying. All of a sudden, she is assured of their destination, without even having to ask.

Slapping her hands together, the Doctor smiles up at her friend. ‘We’re here!’ she announces, bright and bubbly. No heaviness. No depth. It is as if their conversation in the med bay had never happened.

But Yaz is hit with that sense of home –  _ Sheffield _ home – so she doesn’t ask. Doesn’t bother. 

She turns to the Doctor. ‘Where are Ryan, and Graham?’ She’d think they’d want to go home too.

‘There’ll be here in a second; I’ll drop them off at theirs,’ the Doctor answers. She hasn’t yet cared to stand up. ‘But it’s Park Hill, like you asked.’

Did she? She must have done, even if she doesn’t remember. Shrugging off the confusion, Yaz crosses to the TARDIS door. In the TARDIS’ strange red-orange light, the translucent words over the door frame, backwards from this position inside the ship, are glowing faintly red.

She looks back, the Doctor has disappeared.

The door creaks a drawn-out groan as Yaz eases it open. The seal broken – light floods in – too bright to be mere, daylight, too encompassing. Too angry: it pricks at the back of her eyes, shrouds her in its ghostliness. She winces, and chokes. The air seizes her throat, oxygen clouded in drt; heavy and thick with smoke. Fumes and burning. The petrol smell and something sweeter, cloying.

She blinks to clear her eyes of the excess light and the fumes, of the heat that is warming the front of her body. When she is free, and her sight clear, the image that greets her burns her stomach.

Her whole  _ being  _ jolts. She feels as if it is the world itself that has been knocked sideways, her gut wrenched and her heart squeezed so tightly she may pass out.

She looks out on a dead world. An unsettled world. Green has been singed, to brown, to black. Burning. Against a burning red sky, smoke billows from multiple disaster sites on the horizon, blackened, frenzied limbs reaching in an attempt to penetrate the smog-filled clouds: limbs reaching up to the sun, for a new chance, a new hope, a new life.

Rubble and debris, concrete and glass, are piled on one another like fragile bodies. Immersed in the disaster are the casualties, the not-yet-fatalities, crawling like maggots feasting. Assessing the wreckage, to plunder what they can, what little is left. Her heart is roaring in her chest. What on Earth can be left? The beginning of the end: first go the building, the landmarks, the physical remnants of their world. Then the structures of humanity, set in place by humanity, society, order; they all fall like dominoes. Then finally, humanity itself.

Park Hill is gone, rainbow structures crumbled and glinting in orange firelight. People’s apartments, their livelihoods, their homes –  _ her  _ home, her family’s home – with no support underneath them have toppled and plunged to the ground, the impact rendering them nothing but dust. She cannot help the tears that fall at the thought of the lives lost, so many perished. And her parents, Sonya? Did they tumble too, to be crushed by concrete and steel? Are they dead now? Did she miss their death?

Were they mourned? Or is she too late?

She clutches the TARDIS door frame and sobs. Kneeling.

Blinking through the tears that are falling on the TARDIS floor, she gazes up again – and with each blink, the world changes. Structures she’d just seen devastated are whole again. Her primary school. Her secondary school. The cafe she used to visit on days off. The police station. The theatre she’d visited twice. Places, also, she’s never seen before, fresh and new and waiting for her.

She blinks. They glitch. New – then rubble. She blinks. New. She squints – and they explode, earth-shattering explosions that rumble through the TARDIS. Walls sliding off. People diving to the Earth. She blinks. They glitch. New again. Waiting for her. Waiting to be destroyed.

She clasps her hands over her face, wiping away tears from her cheeks. The buildings are destroyed, another shockwave, another injury on the Earth. She blinks, but they stay wrecked, no longer waiting for the inevitable. It has happened; death and destruction all over again. And she wasn’t there.

And the fires. The smell of meat, pungent. Cooked meat. Oh, God.  _ God. _

Just as she stands, turning to run back into the TARDIS – so she can sound the alarm, warn Graham and Ryan not to enter this hell world – three figures emerge on the path to the Park Hill estate. Stumbling, unsteady, they catch her eye. They are still standing. And tall. Three figures – Yaz’s heart shivers – but suddenly, incomprehensibly, they are closer – and her being jolts again. Her stomach jumps. Dregs. But she knows them. She whimpers – she  _ knows  _ them. They continue staggering towards her – all grey sinewy muscle and claws. Snarling and saliva dripping down from crocodile-strong jaws. Teeth bared – they used to smile at her with those mouths, free and loving and safe – now those teeth are as sharp as knives. They will not embrace her. They will tear her limb to limb. Make her suffer as they have – make her pay for running away.

‘Doctor,’ she croaks. Coughs. ‘Doctor!’ She slams the TARDIS doors shut – they won’t get her in here, she’s safe in here. Already the gleam of the firelight has disappeared, replaced once more by the red-orange of the TARDIS. It is relieving, if a little jarring. Her stomach jumps.

Everything feels real, but nothing feels right. Not anymore.

Her  _ home _ .

‘Doctor,’ she repeats, the words interrupted by another bout of coughing. She inhales her tears, the saltwater unwelcome in her oesophagus.

The TARDIS door is solid, welcoming, as her forehead rests against it; she gasps lungfuls of air to recover. She’ll ask the Doctor to take them back, to figure out what went wrong. How they –  _ she  _ – can fix this.

Three slams reverberate through the wood – one by one by one. Dregs. Yaz gasps and jumps back. They’re coming – they’ll make her pay. Heart in her throat, engulfed in the smoke.

‘Doctor!’ She whips round to face the rest of the console room, a beg for help on her lips.

A burnt body staggers towards her. Blackened skin and singed fabric. Dirty grey almost unrecognisable, punched with black-rimmed holes, flowing round putrid, burning flesh.

Hazel eyes, bloodshot agony, horrific white and red against the charred black. No sense of home left to exist.

And clear as day, staring straight at Yaz.

She screams. Her world tilts.

‘I burned it.’ The scorched husk of the Doctor’s body opens its mouth – blood oozes from the cracked-clay surface of the skin – but it is not her voice. Familiar, but jarring.

From a strangle cry escapes her terror, the memories of his sadistic grin as he revealed his great plan on the pilotless plane. He’d grinned at the thought of O – the real O – being miniaturised. How easily he’d tossed that life away.

He should be trapped – he should be stuck in that other world, that other dimension. Yaz flattens herself against the thumping TARDIS door, the Dregs pounding on the other side as the Doctor’s burnt body stumbles towards her.

‘I burned it all,’ the Master continues, the jaw opening stiffly, painfully. There is none of his lightness, that careful hint of madness. In his voice booms the fury, a rage that crawls into her ears and digs down into her insides. ‘It’s gone. You can’t save it.’

Still, the burnt husk approaches.

Shaking, her body jerking forward from the Dregs’ assault on the doors. She knows he’s come to take her away – to banish her to the other dimension, the cold nothingness, so she can never undo his handiwork – so she can never save her planet, her home. The heat from the Doctor’s scorched corpse pours off the burns in waves and batters into her – it closes in on her, dousing her in a horrible heat – the smell of cooked meat and the sound of his laughter, and she screams—

‘Yaz! Yaz!’

Someone is shouting for her. With a shudder, Yaz opens her weary eyes. She can’t focus, can’t do much but blink the echoes of the memory away. But her butt hurts like  _ hell _ , so she plants her hands down on the honeycomb stairs to adjust her position.

The orange light of the TARDIS is seeping into her skin and her bones. She tries to glimpse the rest of the room – just to check. Warm hands are resting on her cheeks, and, as she blinks, she recognises the Doctor’s face, porcelain skin and perfect hazel eyes, pressed up close to her own.

Doctor.  _ The Doctor. _

‘Oh, my God,’ Yaz breathes. The tears escape the ridge of her eyelids to fall onto her cheekbones, and onto the Doctor’s fingers. They are wiped away by sure hands.

She might mumble the Doctor’s name again. She’s not sure it ever leaves her mouth. All that matters is the image in front of her – quiet salvation resting against her in the midst of her terror, quiet salvation bringing escape from her punishment. All that matters is the image of smooth skin. Checking for any abrasion, any bristled, blackened skin.

Sure hands. Smooth and warm. Soft to the touch.

‘You’re safe,’ the Doctor murmurs. Quiet – quiet salvation – sure and strong despite the low volume. Close enough to hear the vibration of her throat, the muscles straining to ground Yaz in this moment. She presses a kiss to Yaz’s forehead. Warm. Alive. Unbothered by thoughts of blackening, burning, a horrible burning. ‘It was just a dream. It wasn’t real, Yaz.  _ This?’  _ Another kiss to her brow. Terror softening. ‘This is real.’ 

Here. Real. Safe.

They indulge in the silence for a minute – no sound but the TARDIS, the restless whirring, and Yaz’s breathing. Her chest is working overtime, grabbing at the air for any oxygen possible. Quick – in, out, in, out. In every exhale there’s a cry waiting to be screamed. In every exhale a blame, a gloat.

It slows down, though. Slowly but surely. The Doctor doesn’t once move, and Yaz wouldn’t want her to. The light filling the room is back to its usual hues but the greatest comfort is the image in front of her: the soft, the sure, the smooth. The real. Even with closed eyes, she is reminded of it: in every other moment, the Doctor’s thumbs catch tears in a constant motion, the digits surging back and forth like wingbeats.

In. And out. Real, and alive.

Her head is spinning, her heart frenzied. But at least she can breathe. She opens her eyes to find the Doctor watching her.

‘Are you okay?’ All the gentleness in the universe comes from the Doctor’s lips. She holds her gaze; all the gentleness there too.

Tiredly, Yaz wonders how many times the Doctor has had to do this.

She wonders how many people have been able to do this for her, and her heart squeezes. 

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ the Doctor asks.

The calm is cracked open by the memory of the dream. The burnt husk staggers towards her in her mind’s eye, the Doctor – the real Doctor,  _ her  _ Doctor – banished inside it. Her heartbeat picks up.

‘Hey, you don’t have to. Just – I’m here, if you did.’

It was a nightmare, just a nightmare, she knows it was a nightmare. But she feels unsafe now the nightmare has crept back into her mind’s eye. His figure lingers on the edge of its periphery, a grin delighting in this game of hide and seek. He could be there. He could take her away and punish her. They don’t know whether he’ll stay in the other dimension.

‘I had a dream the other night that my socks came alive and wanted to eat my toes,’ the Doctor announces – and it’s so sudden, so unlike what Yaz is thinking, that all her thought processes seize at once. She stares at her, only just comprehending. With her attention grabbed, the Doctor’s hands come down to wrap around her hands. ‘They were my favourite socks, too,’ her friend continues, pulling a thoroughly displeased expression, so deep as to be ridiculous. ‘Haven’t worn them since.’

Yaz’s heart soars.

‘You’re so strange,’ she responds fondly. A smile graces her lips – and of course, of course it was the Doctor to bring it forward.

‘Thanks,’ is the reply she gets, so full of enthusiasm that Yaz immediately wishes she could feel the same. The bubble of brightness fizzles away as the Doctor adjusts, sitting by Yaz’s side on the honeycomb stairs instead of crouching in front. ‘Are you okay?’ the Doctor asks again, hazel eyes searching. 

Yaz finds it difficult not to heave a sigh, to let the nightmare pass from her lungs to the Doctor’s. She sits up slightly instead, her right shoulder immediately relieved, and takes a deep breath. There is a hint of the Doctor’s scent in it; peppermint and engine oil and home, that spreading warmth of home.

‘Fine, yeah,’ she answers. Better now the Doctor is here – really here. The alternative is a gut punch, an unspeakable. In a far-off crevice of her mind, he laughs, and her family stalks her. ‘Just—’

Closer, the Doctor is closer now. It is not often they get to be this close to another. From here, she can see where the Doctor has tucked back loose blonde hair behind a pink ear. She takes in the curve of it, the tips blossomed red. Further down the earlobe, her silver earrings: the stars, the hands, and the hope of them.

Hands still entwined, the outsides of their thighs are touching too, resting together in calm companionship; in a necessary companionship. Yaz’s gaze travels from the sight of their legs back up to the Doctor. Eyes wide and curious, concerned. A thousand questions pushed back.

‘The Dregs,’ Yaz finally explains, under a shiver, under a swallow. Fear surges up again, her lungs crushed under the force of it.

She frowns at her thigh. Emotions like these stick to her, pliable like putty but impossible to get off. She’ll pick at it for the rest of her life. Her fault. Her fault. In the heightened aftermath, she feels it again: raw and sore on her skin.

Only this time, when she tries to pick it off, she’ll hear the inhuman snarls to add their blame.

‘Ah,’ she hears, as a soft knuckle wipes away the latest tear. Close, then further – the Doctor relinquishes a hand to provide Yaz with a tissue. She takes it gratefully. ‘Thought it might’ve been.’ The hand that left her returns to its previous place, careful cream cradling brown.

Around them, the hum of the TARDIS is a settled sigh.

‘That’s in my head now. Forever,’ Yaz says, more for herself than anyone in particular. ‘For the rest of my life. Everything made rubble, all my life undone. And…’

‘It isn’t fixed, remember? That isn’t set in stone. It’s not a fixed point in time,’ the Doctor gently reminds her. ‘The memory will fade in time. And if things go right, they’ll disappear anyway. Never existed.’

But it piles on top of everything else. Crushing, like stone. It gouges marks in it.

Yaz shakes her head, and the thought dissipates, only to be replaced by another memory.

‘And you were burned too,’ Yaz confesses in a rush. The Doctor draws back slightly, her eyes so bright, so sorrowful. ‘You were – it was your body. You were lost. You were coming for me.’

She doesn’t mention him.

Doesn’t dare.

She thinks kings could kneel for a gaze like that. All sorrow and sympathy, a readiness to fix the unfixable. Her hearts break so much that it seeps into her stare, shards like the gold in the green. Catching her eye keeps Yaz fixed in it – she is suspended there, counting every golden crack in the quiet that passes. Unable to do anything but acknowledge it, confront the sheer power of her sadness.

Conviction hardens the line of her mouth. ‘Then you know it’s not real,’ she answers firmly, ‘because I’m right in front of you. Here.’ With an endless gentleness, she guides Yaz’s hands up and forwards to settle on the sides of her breastbone.

Each of her hands press close to the skin, wishing for contact with familiar heartbeats. Then a four-beat rhythm. Yaz swallows.

‘Right as rain,’ the Doctor promises, surety taking the mantle from her usual bright enthusiasm. ‘Not a scratch.’

Not physically, no. But Yaz doesn’t say that, either. Too much to say.

‘I know,’ she nods.

The Doctor makes no move to dismantle their position, not for the moment, and neither does Yaz. Pressed against pulses, against warmth, in their proximity; they heighten Yaz’s heart rate despite the Doctor’s best efforts to keep her calm.

And the Doctor’s heartbeats: strong and proud, and slightly fast.

Having both her palms on the Doctor’s chest isn’t a viable position to stay in, no matter how comforting the four-beat rhythm is. Yaz detracts her hands with a sheepish smile, a quiet, ‘Thank you,’ but doesn’t make eye contact until after the fact. When she does, she notices, for the first time, that the Doctor’s cheeks have turned ever so slightly pink.

‘Always, Yaz,’ the Doctor responds earnestly.

Hands that guided her own now sit uneasily on the Doctor’s lap. Out of the corner of her eye, Yaz can see them fidget: half a melody interrupted by a sudden urge to toy with each other, curious fingers threading through gaps to be released again.

And Yaz, by and large, is not that much of a hugger. There are only a few people she feels comfortable invading her personal space for any prolonged amount of time, and most of them share a surname with her. But she asks the Doctor. Of course she does. As with most things, she is Yaz’s startling exception.

And – Yaz thinks back to their earlier conversation, the whisperings of grief – the Doctor probably needs one too.

Her smile is surprised – almost dopey – at the thought of it. In the second she takes to answer, a hushed little, ‘’Course,’ Yaz steadily brushes away any hesitation, or perception of it. She wraps one arm around the Doctor’s back, and one arm across her midriff. Her relieved sigh is joined by the Doctor’s as her limbs settle too.

Time stretches and constricts again. Civilisations rise and fall. It could all be happening outside the TARDIS doors, and Yaz wouldn’t know.

Engine oil, lavender and peppermint. The Doctor’s body expanding, her chest swelling, with her deep breathing.

Yaz lies her head down on the Doctor’s shoulder. Breathes in, out.

The universe could be knocking on the doors, and she simply wouldn’t be aware.

‘I used to dream that Barney the Dinosaur went to my school and tried to sabotage my GCSE exams,’ she murmurs. The Doctor stirs at the sound. ‘And then my Bratz dolls from my childhood became real people, and we banded together to expose Barney as a liar.’ She frowns. ‘I had that dream seven times in three weeks.’

‘Clever clogs like you?’ she hears. ‘Barney never stood a chance.’

Yaz tries her best not to let the compliment get to her. She shrugs. ‘The weirdest thing was that everyone was cool with Barney being a student.’ She suddenly remembers that the Doctor definitely did not grow up with the children’s programme, so she hastens to explain, ‘A great big purple dinosaur. At school.’ She shakes her head in wonder.

All of a sudden, the Doctor straightens up, and Yaz’s head bounces, a little unceremoniously, off her shoulder. ‘Did you know there’s a planet covered in purple plants for almost all of its seasons?’ her friend chirps. ‘And all the animals there have one thing in common: their scales, or fur, or skin, all have pigments that reflect the colour of their food, so they’re nearly always purple. Purple dinosaur-like aliens!’ The Doctor is grinning now. ‘And I know for a  _ fact _ that they don’t try to ruin people’s grades too. Very lovely bunch, they were.’

Yaz smiles. ‘We should visit,’ she suggests at the sight of her friend’s sudden joy.‘Take a break – a proper one this time. No nasty surprises.’ Thoughts of Vilma, of Bella and Kane, descend on her pause: twisting off the end of the ellipsis to force a full stop.

Not even born in her lifetime, but already she is mourning their deaths. How many people have they had to mourn now? She’s lost count.

She hates that some of them are already nameless. They won’t be nameless to others, millions of years in the future. But they are becoming so to her, to Ryan and Graham, to the Doctor; though they tried as best they could, their loyalties lie somewhere else.

‘I think I’d like to go home first though,’ she adds. ‘See my family again.’

She thinks she’ll hug them. Too much has gone on since she last landed home – in her head, laid at her feet. Nothing she can say, of course, and the persistent guilt stabs at her insides, again.

It seems a little hypocritical. For all of her bravado with the Doctor earlier, she cannot tell her own family about her travels. When she grieves, when she cries, how can they help if she never tells them?

But they haven’t been on these journeys, she reminds herself. They haven’t seen the Doctor at her best, stars blazing behind them and in her eyes as the universe unravels around them. They haven’t seen the many ways a people can redeem themselves.

They haven’t seen the Doctor break and punish herself, only to be coaxed back into closeness. A million thoughts rushing around at once, filling the room, and never asking one of them.

The closest she got was back on Orphan 55.

And the question still burns Yaz’s lungs.

This request to return Sheffield throws the Doctor off for a moment. Her shoulders hunch and the fire in her eyes withers into a kindling flame. Plainly, she attempts to move away. ‘I can get started—’

‘No!’ Yaz is quick to interrupt her, squeezing the Doctor reflexively in a bid to halt the disentanglement. She hopes she didn’t sound desperate. Then again, she is probably hoping against hope. ‘Not yet. In the morning.’ Tonight seems long and stretched before her – and that’s how she wants it to be. If she can get the  _ Doctor  _ to talk, then what else is accomplishable?

The heat starts low in her gut: unbidden and furious. Not entirely unwanted. But at the realisation, she pushes it down again. Pirouetting and skin to skin searching – only in her wildest dreams would she hope for it.

The Doctor is too much: all the stars shine in her eyes, but all their nebulae, too, the gorgeous graveyards.

It is not hard to feel daunted around a person like that, small against the enigmatic.

Nor is it hard to be pulled towards it. She doesn’t expect to be caught. Just pulled.

‘Oh.’ There is no small sense of relief in the Doctor’s voice as she settles back down onto the steps. ‘Graham and Ryan are probably sleeping anyway.’ Unnecessary justification, but Yaz’ll take it. At the thought of them, the Doctor grimaces. ‘Are they okay, Yaz?’ she queries, her voice frantic. ‘I mean, really?’ Her hands come around to search for Yaz: in unconsciousness they search for each other, reach for each other, and grasp tightly.

Yaz suspects this is the question the Time Lord has been wanting to ask since her visit to the kitchen. The distance between the two parties rendered that impossible though; that awareness of a distance, between what was known and what the Doctor said, has stopped her short of saying anything for a while. Yaz knows – she’s  _ felt _ that chasm. Now they’ve built a bridge again, her questions can finally come forward.

It’s not a surprise that the Doctor is asking after them. Yaz is getting used to the idea that the Doctor still cares for the three of them again. It’s hard to shut off that cynicism after weeks of no answers, but tonight has done a great deal of work to rectify it.

The Doctor’s probing warms Yaz’s heart even further. She didn’t even know that was possible.

It can’t have been too long since she followed the Doctor out of the med bay, and she can’t have she slept for long. But it’s late, and each of them has exhaustion seeping from their bones. If the boys are not already in bed, finding relief in the black of sleep, then she knows where they’ll be.

She’d bet all her money that, right now, Graham is in his favourite chair in the second library they ever found. It has the right lighting, the right ambience: aside from him, only the Doctor visits that room, so he can stay undisturbed as he watches  _ Call the Midwife _ .

Ryan is a little harder to pin down, having more than one past time unlike his grandfather. Still, Yaz is fairly sure he’ll be in his room, watching  _ Star Wars _ , his comfort entertainment, or possibly playing a game from the franchise. 

After the conversation they had in the kitchen, she doesn’t exactly blame them. Not afforded the same privileges as her, they have sought out the creature comforts they’ve carved for themselves on the TARDIS. It is probably the most reassurance they’ve felt this entire day.

They certainly didn’t get any from the Doctor.

The thought immediately makes her heart ache. They need to know, Yaz decides, and soon. They need to know the Doctor finally talked.

Yaz thinks of the millions of innocents, each with their voices taken from them. They’ll never speak again. The Doctor, in her burnt body of Yaz’s nightmare, could not speak with her own voice. It was his, the guiltless thief.

More than anything, the Doctor deserves to tell Ryan and Graham what happened. With so much gone, she deserves at least that.

They deserve it, too. Partial trust is not enough if it destroys them.

‘They’ll be fine, Doctor, eventually,’ she reassures her friend. Immediately, the anxiousness ebbs, and thumbs resume their delicate strokes on the back of Yaz's palms. ‘It’s been hard for us, not knowing.’

Guilt and grief glisten in the Doctor’s gaze; they weaken her grip, her hands turning limp on Yaz’s lap.

‘But they’ll come around,’ Yaz continues. ‘Just give them time. And –’ she frowns ‘– trust us to hear you.’ She tries not to think about their frustrations, how they all painted the Doctor in a cruel light. ‘They’ll take any olive branch you give them, you know that.’

The Doctor nods minutely.

‘I told them you saved me,’ Yaz starts, 'back on Ear— um, Orphan 55.’ She inhales slowly, grateful for it. ‘I told them you gave me your breath. Though I still think you should’ve saved it for yourself, Doctor.’

‘You should’ve told me you were running out!’ she protests.

A ghost wind rushes around her, biting cold instead of the lukewarm comfort of the console room. The lights brighten, turning a mottled grey from overhead clouds. The honeycomb stairs sit in the middle of a stony, featureless landscape, and the Doctor disappears from her side. Her hand clad in the life support device, and trapped in her own ruminations, struggling desperately to save this band of unlikely allies in the snarling faces of their futures. Some die, and some do not, and still she does not speak.

And every time Yaz tries to call on her, her requests fall on deaf ears. Every time.

The knowledge that she  _ tried  _ does nothing to lessen the hurt of it. But the Doctor’s acknowledgement – her eventual willingness to speak – is starting to reassure her. It’s starting to make her think.

She would’ve preferred for the Doctor not to go to such lengths, to almost  _ die _ . And what would have been of them then? Both of them without breath, crumpled on the floor; oblivious to the impending deaths of their friends and their charges, to their own shortfalls. Only a coldness borne from stubbornness. It cut through Kane, and it would’ve cut them down where they stood. A refusal to reach out a hand, and an inability to reach back.

In the worst moments, the frustration clouded everything. Spilling over like a poison, it had been easy to sharpen the image of the Doctor in her head until all her words were barbs, all her shapes becoming pointed tips on which she and the boys would prick their fingers and bleed. But that’s not true, it’s not right. The Doctor cares, she knew this. She wanted to see it again.

She knew that the Doctor would not let her lie there.

Submerged in the underground, surrounded by death and all its grey-sinewed accomplices, the Doctor breathed life into her. Refused to let her give in anymore, brought heat and life back into her body when there was nothingness, cold nothingness.

Yaz shivers. She is so sick of the cold.

She blinks away the reminiscence. The TARDIS console returns to her and the Doctor is a reassurance at her side, stroking the pliable skin between Yaz’s thumb and forefinger.

Catching a glimpse of hazel wonder, and they smile at each other. Then her eyes trail downwards, just slightly, and echoes spring to the forefront of her mind.

Her lips, the soft pressure lingering. She knew when she regained consciousness that it was the Doctor. Even dizzy and severely oxygen-deprived, she put two and two together and realised what her friend had done.

What a shame she had to be unconscious for this first press. What a  _ damn  _ shame.

Eyes closed, she recalls all the times she dared to dream: breathless musings late at night, her face covered from the world by the duvet, so only she could catch herself in the hopeless act. Or, in the quick moments scattered amongst their adventures, when the Doctor did something particularly endearing. Too late to warn herself, letting her adoration show.

That need for contact is an inherent thing; she won’t deny herself the knowledge of that. It is a beast of its own, and she struggles to control it at the best of times. But they’ve laid bare their wounds and everything seems so open still. It is a long night she wants to be endless, and all her walls are down. She can feel her grip on caution slipping, loosening.

The fumble under the stethoscope, heard strong and true in her ears. Wide eyes open, and  _ telling  _ her. She’s so good, the Doctor, at evasion. But Yaz can’t help but think.

The fumble. The heartbeats. Yaz screws her eyes shut closer. Quick four-beat, too quick. Just a little too fast. Sacrifice and skin on skin searching, and words she wants to say, straining to be considered. And that  _ question _ .

Shockwaves pulsing through her.

‘Yaz? You okay?’

Eyes still closed, her other senses alive. Her mouth is dry, the taste almost metallic: she is aware of her rushing blood. The Doctor’s thumb strokes. She is unable to concentrate on much more.

This is a good burning, Yaz hopes. More than anything, she  _ hopes _ .

With a deep breath – grateful still – she opens her eyes again, and alights on the sight of the Doctor. Her friend regards her with such open concern, Yaz’s heart almost cracks open then.

But no. Now. Now is the time to ask. ‘Doctor…’

‘Yes?’ The question is immediate.

Yaz’s heart is pounding. God, she bets the Doctor could hear it from miles away. She swallows, and plunges. ‘Earlier. On Orphan 55, when Kane arrived.’ She watches the Doctor’s eyes glaze over, the invisible cinema screen rewinding the day’s events. The ghost dark settles over them, a rusted metallic staircase surrounded by rubble emerging, translucent, from the solid honeycomb steps. Behind them, Kane faces off with the persistent Dreg, their figures just echoes, their sounds imagined. ‘You turned to me. And – you were about to say something.’

The Doctor freezes.

Just say something. She stands by her earlier conviction in the med bay. She’s thought too much, overthought herself into a hole; she is exhausted by its silence, the gaps between what is known and what is said. Sound will give thoughts credence, a chance to  _ become _ . And she has nothing else to give.

Crouched into the Doctor like this, she is a breath away from falling apart. Or falling into something.

‘What were you gonna say?’ she wonders. She has no idea what to expect, not with the Doctor. But she still hopes.

She can see the moment the Doctor makes her decision. A careful lean back, and the mask snaps back into place. The anticipation bursts with a  _ pop _ . ‘Oh, nothing,’ the Doctor answers breezily, more guard in that lightness than in her heaviest words. Her smile is infuriating. ‘Really.’

It is infuriating.

Yaz sighs. Loudly. Loud enough to hear over her own disappointment, rippling like a balloon deflating. ‘Doctor,’ she says.

‘I can’t remember, Yasmin. I’m sorry.’ This close to Yaz, the facade is ruined easily: her hands are too jittery, her eyes just a touch too scared. She cannot keep their eye contact.

Still, Yaz tries. She’s damned, she thinks, if she gives up now. ‘ _ Doctor _ . Don’t do this now,’ she implores. Just say something. When the Doctor looks back, she adds, ‘It’s still me.’

‘ _ Exactly _ .’ It’s almost a snap; the Doctor frowns, taking the opportunity to flicker down to their interlocked hands; the criss-cross of pinkish cream and brown, almost moulded into one.

Finally, the Doctor’s gaze lifts up, and stays there. Her eyes are shining with vulnerability, her mouth in a tight line.

‘I wanted to apologise for kissing you.’

Yaz’s heart stutters. ‘Kissing me?’

The Doctor attempts to dispel her nervous energy in a shudder, the nonchalance of it dismantled by its own existence. ‘Yeah – I mean, technically, it was a resuscitation, so I suppose it’s not  _ actually  _ a kiss, but – still – I still should’ve asked—’

Oh, damn it. ‘Did you want it to be a kiss?’ Yaz interrupts. ‘Is that why you called it that?’

When did her heartbeat get so  _ loud? _

Stunned. The Doctor’s mouth is suspended around the word she was about to say.

Her grip on Yaz’s hands has loosened. Gently, she turns the Doctor’s hands over, so her palms face the ceiling. One stroke of Yaz’s thumb on the Doctor’s left wrist reveals to her the two-beat pulse pushing against her thumb tip, frantic.

Is this pushing it too far? After all her careful earlier, coaxing the Doctor away from stubborn self-sabotage – is she undoing everything in her own determination?

She can’t bear that possibility. Not after all this wondering.

She can feel herself shaking. She clears her throat to draw attention away from it.

But she has to know.

‘Don’t apologise, Doctor,’ she murmurs. She’s taken to drawing circles on her friend’s palms. ‘For a start, it saved me.’ The Doctor swallows nervously, and Yaz’s attention is distracted; the circles evolve messily into roaming infinity signs.

‘I – I know, but…’ the Doctor trails off, her throat thick with her constant thoughts. ‘You might’ve said no. You might’ve regretted it.’

Yaz laughs. ‘I definitely wouldn’t have,’ she answers.

It’s out of her mouth just like that, and she realises a second too late. Her heart rate spikes.

Her eyes widen, the same time as the Doctor’s.

Fuck.

Her card played, the ace laid bare on the table.  _ Fuck.  _ She wasn’t meant to slam it down so quickly. She was meant to  _ wait _ , to stick to hints until it was safe.

‘W-What?’ the Doctor stammers.

Suddenly on the back foot, her ministrations on her friend’s palms cease.

But the Doctor interlinks their fingers with a new urgency. Yaz’s breath is made jagged by her surprise.

‘Yaz,’ the Doctor pleads, eyes searching.

_ Damn  _ it. ‘I underestimated how much I care for you.’ Eyes screwed shut, it comes spilling out with no chance to stop it. And perhaps it is a good thing – perhaps this  _ can  _ end well. She hopes. She has nothing but words, and hope.

She opens her eyes. ‘I think you did too,’ Yaz continues, the words burning in her lungs. She needs them out, now. Pandora’s Box is opened; she plunges into consequence and effect. ‘And when you closed off, it hurt more than I thought it would. More than I wanted it to. The last thing I want, Doctor, is to lose this. You. And I thought I – we were. But tonight…’

‘ _ Yaz _ .’

She shakes her head, inhales deeply. She can’t decipher the Doctor’s expression. There is so much scrawled on that face, burning and bright and pleading and watching her falling apart.

‘I spent a lot of time today trying to get you to talk, to tell you that you’re  _ heard _ . ’Cause the more you pulled away, the more we lost you. But then you gave me your breath, and at the stairs, you looked at me – actually, finally,  _ looked  _ at me – and for a second… I thought you were going to kiss me again.’ She recalls the hope she didn’t dare have, the damned question she wanted to ask there and then – to kiss her again – and the let down burning her cheeks. ‘Then I heard your heartbeat in the med bay.’ She nurses a small smile. ‘The flutter.’ A heartbeat like wingbeats.

‘Yaz.’

A thousand kings would fall on their knees at a gentle gaze like that. A thousand more would be  _ glad  _ to.

Yaz does not think of herself royalty, but she knows she would too.

The Doctor has thousand thoughts for a thousand kings, each an uphill battle. They take over her, and Yaz watches their consequence flit over her face, even if Yaz is not privy to the words.

Patiently, impatiently, she counts the seconds in between the call and response. Her hope against hope, soaring.

‘Yaz, it’s – I’m—’ The dam is cracking, but the structure does not buckle. There is a tide in the Doctor’s eyes, a flow Yaz cannot yet uncover - and more than anything, she needs that overflow to douse her. Drown her, if need be. She just needs to know.

‘Yaz, I can’t—’

What goes up must come down. Hope dives, and the lightness in the room is sucked into a black hole of her own making.

‘Please.’  _ Doctor _ . She wants to shout that word, to kickstart some sort of motion. Sitting so still, her muscles tight, her focus so strong her headache may yet return. She needs to  _ know _ .

She wants to scream,  _ You can, you can _ , but what good would that do?

‘Don’t lie to me,’ she demands to the Doctor’s crestfallen face. ‘I can handle rejection, but I won’t lose you.’

It’s almost the truth. She would handle it – eventually. But this is a black hole of her own making. She was better in ignorance.

Still, she’d take pitying looks and long, lonely nights over a severe separation. A severe silence.

She sniffs away a well of emotions, unaware of the tears until they make themselves known.

She will not lose the Doctor.

‘Yaz. You won’t lose me.’

Then that is it, isn’t it? So much for handling rejection: the last of her hope dives headfirst into the black. Long, lonely nights ahead – and of all the people, she thinks bitterly, why her? Why that face, the kind eyes Yaz can never refuse? Why the Doctor, the definition of impossible?

This is a surge of emotion she can’t control; it grabs her throat and forces out a sob. She breaks away from the Doctor, their space free of the world around them. She is determined to wrestle it alone. A mistake of her own doing. She has to fix it.

But the Doctor acts  _ confused.  _ ‘Wait – what are you d--’

It doesn’t make sense. She grasps Yaz’s arm, desperate. And despite herself, Yaz looks up. Bleary eyed in a blurred world, she knows her eyes are wide, watching the Doctor in her own lack of understanding. It’s not fair that the Doctor has this effect on her; this impossible woman. It’s not fair that Yaz will still hear her out immediately after she did an excellent job at breaking her heart.

‘Come back,’ the Doctor begs. ‘Yaz, please. I’m trying to –  _ Gods _ , why is this so hard? Yaz, I’m bad at this. Really,  _ really  _ bad, but I’m trying. Please don’t leave.’

Hands that implored her to stay now request something new. No – something familiar. Yaz lets her hands be guided back to the Doctor’s chest, one palm on each side of her breastbone. And there, her favourite rhythm. Four-beat exultation, rapid and faster, still, in the joy of feeling her touch.

And.

Wow.

Crawling out of the black hole, to fall into something.

Something new.

Her smile is tentative, but those pleading eyes are encouraging. All the stars gazing at her.

‘How—’ the Doctor tries over her own words, with no sense of embarrassment. The pink in her cheeks, Yaz suspects, is from that something new, and the thought widens her smile. The Doctor responds in kind, the beam moulding around her question, ‘How did you know?’

She is so close that she can see the Doctor’s swallow, the up and down of her throat.

They have settled in each other’s spaces, wrapped in their thoughts and the future they are edging open together. It is only right, Yaz thinks, to keep her voice hushed when she speaks. Her laugh, even, is a quiet thing; a bewildered little sound, bathed in a grateful disbelief.

‘I didn’t,’ she confesses. ‘I just hoped, really hard. Before you gave me your oxygen, I was half-convinced you hated me—’

‘What? Yaz, no, I could never—’

‘But, obviously, you didn’t,’ Yaz continues pointedly, raising one eyebrow, her watery smile stretched to its full potential. ‘And I knew that, really. It was just…’ She moves on. ‘And then, you know, I heard your heartbeat speed up when we were in the med bay... Close to each other. I was so focused on not giving myself away that I couldn’t think about it, couldn’t give myself the chance. But I hoped I hadn’t imagined it. That’s all it took.’ Her words, despite herself, come out louder this time. Stronger. ‘Hope.’

She frowns at herself. ‘Well, that and stubbornness. I right put my foot in it, but I just wanted to be sure. About you, about…’ she looks down at her hands, the life they hear, and she taps the skin with her index fingers. Then, she gently brings them away, to entangle them instead in the Doctor's own. Life pulsing, real and grateful.

‘Yasmin Khan,’ the Doctor breathes, her smile so wide that Yaz cannot help but be dazzled by it. ‘Never had you down as a romantic.’

The cheek! ‘Really?’ Yaz is proud to say she does not pout. Almost, but not quite. Her grin returns, and she fights back. ‘You’re going to – you’re going to  _ poke fun?  _ Right now?’

Though if she is expecting a similarly light riposte, it is not what she receives. In the light of their teasing, the Doctor suddenly turns serious. For a split second, Yaz wonders, her heart thudding, if she’d misread the situation, said the wrong thing--

But then the Doctor surges forward, their lips almost touching.

Yaz’s heart almost cries out in joy.

She can feel the Doctor’s breath on her lips. Oh, God.  _ Blessed  _ God. This is really it, isn’t it? All the long nights she had, when she hoped against hope. Her exhale is no more than a tremble.

‘Tell me. Please. Tell me if – tell me to stop, if this isn’t what you want. Please, Yaz.’

Her voice. This close, and this low, Yaz’s heart is doing somersaults. Of  _ course  _ she wants this.

It is a damn miracle she manages to nod her confirmation. Her eyes flutter shut, the sweet anticipation rising.

She feels the smooth tracks of the Doctor’s hand as fingers alight past her neck to clasp her jaw. Yaz’s own hands reach blindly forwards and hurriedly cling onto mustard braces. The Doctor’s head dips and then.

Soft lips touch and Yaz’s brain immediately short-circuits.

Sweet anticipation bursts into the heightened state, a  _ higher  _ state, the feel of the Doctor’s nose bumping against her own as they first move with one another. All that matters is the sensation of the Doctor. All of it. Gentle pressure gifted to her lips, then disappearing, only to descend again. The shift of lips giving way to matching sighs. 

All that matters is the sensation of the Doctor. All of her. The heady combination of the Doctor’s heat pouring off the Doctor’s body, and the scent of her rapidly becoming a hint of home. Blonde locks brushing against Yaz’s jaw. When she deepens the kiss, and for the first time feels the smoothness of a bottom lip against the tip of her tongue, she hears –  _ feels  _ – the Doctor inhale in a gasp.

Skin on skin searching – they have found each other. It feels like a  _ finally. _

She pushes her head forward, pressing on the Doctor’s mouth, seeking more; opening again, to embrace more. Her hands move of their own accord, to settle back to their favourite place on the Doctor’s chest. Four-beat exultation; she knows it beats as hard as her own.

She recognises that thudding against her ribs. It’s not just the Doctor; she needs air. She hates that she needs air. She pulls her mouth away with no small sense of remorse, but the idea of leaving the warmth of the Doctor’s embrace is incomprehensible. Their foreheads find each other and they take the opportunity to recover.

Oxygen. Oxygen is definitely a good thing. She’s learnt that much, today.

‘Was that okay?’ the Doctor asks.

That low voice, again. It sends a shock straight through Yaz’s body. She has to concentrate on her breathing for a moment, an ease into slowness.

‘Okay?’ Yaz parrots back. ‘That was…’

_ Okay  _ is not the word. That kiss will be in her dreams for the foreseeable future.

She steals a look at the Doctor’s lips again, as if she had not been kissing them just a few seconds ago. The sight of them still brings a sudden heat to her stomach.

Her nights are definitely going to be long, still.

‘I thought so too,’ the Doctor grins. When she laughs, the sounds beckons a blossoming, Yaz’s smile bursting. ‘Can we – uh – do it again? Would that be alright?’

Yaz doesn’t even give herself a chance to say yes.

The press of her lips on the Doctor’s is harder this time, a curious new direction she has been desperate to take. The idea of having this opportunity – to push them in different directions, to try new ways to make the Doctor putty in her hands – makes her giddy. The fact that she  _ can _ , that there is a future in which she kisses the Doctor, is still mind-blowing. 

Blonde strands tickle her jaw again, and her hands itch. She brings them away from the Doctor’s chest to wander upwards and gather in the Doctor’s hair. Then it is the Doctor who explores what Yaz may taste like – the soft sensation causes a heartbeat fumble; her lungs squeeze a sigh through without her knowledge.

The feel of the Doctor’s hair under the pads of her fingertips is another new gift. Where her fingers roam, heat follows, relief blossoming. The soft hair buoys her palms and her fingers curl, stroking.

All the times she’s caught herself watching the Doctor bent over the console, imagining what it would be like to do  _ this _ .

Her own giddy reminiscence is interrupted by a receding pressure – only for the Doctor to find purchase on Yaz’s bottom lip, biting softly down. Yaz melts.

She might make a sound in response. She doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. Pushing forward again, her hands travel downwards, palms on blushed cheeks, and then following the slopes of the Doctor’s shoulders, the taut biceps–

There is a cough. Definitely a cough, that neither of them produced. It jolts them back into the rest of the world: the honeycomb stairs, the console room, Ryan and Graham inside the TARDIS. And a definite cough.

She and the Doctor jump apart, the sudden departure bringing the intensified sensation of loss. The Doctor is still close, still there, but by God does Yaz miss her lips already.

She scowls as she turns around, her heart thudding, to find the source of the cough. When she sees Graham standing there, her heart tumbles out of her chest. In no time at all, the embarrassment crawls up her spine, pricking at the back of her neck.

Suddenly, she wishes there were a trapdoor to fall into.

‘Graham!’ The Doctor sounds far too happy. Overselling it, maybe, Yaz thinks fondly. ‘Graham, hi. What are you doing up so late?’ A pause. ‘Early?’

Yaz is absolutely fine. She is absolutely happy to look at the Doctor, to take in the crumpled shirt, the flyaway hairs, the kiss-swollen lips, and not acknowledge Graham’s existence. She is absolutely  _ fine. _

Except he is not going away. ‘Think the kitchen’s gone walkabout again, Doc,’ he explains, the chagrin loud in his halting response.

Yaz keeps in a sigh, but finally returns his gaze. He looks as embarrassed as Yaz feels; it is as if he does not know how to hold himself, shifting his centre of gravity from one foot to another. He keeps adjusting the lapel of his dressing gown.

She hopes he understands the look she sends him: a mixture of,  _ I’m so sorry you had to see that _ , and, crucially,  _ This makes sense, I promise. _

He’ll understand, won’t he?

‘Third left after the swimming pool?’ the Doctor checks, the sight of composure in the face of gripping awkwardness.

He smacks a palm on his forehead. ‘ _ Left _ , of course it was.’ His hand slides down his head to unsuccessfully shield the other two from the sight of his wide open mouth. ‘Right, I’m off.’ It is said more to himself than the others in the room. His nod is hesitant, and his gaze is deliberately directed at the floor.

‘ _ Please  _ go,’ Yaz mouths, her eyes closing briefly.

But when she watches Graham leave, he has raised his head to look specifically at her. The slightest consternation, and the clear perplexion, on his face speak louder than any verbalisation. Knowing him, it is a promise for a grandfatherly heart-to-heart. She supposes that would have been inevitable regardless. But not now. Not yet. She can’t do that yet.

There are truths that need to be spoken; and some of them are not for Yaz to say.

Graham offers a placating smile, stretched a little too thin by his embarrassment. ‘Congrats, by the way. Sorry about the – uh – I’ll just be off.’

Despite the heat in her cheeks and the impending justification she’ll have to make, Yaz smiles after him. It is a fond smile, if not rueful. She hopes he manages to sleep again, after this unfortunate circumstance.

Her hand is lifted up by another; she turns her head to see the Doctor closer to Yaz again, her head dipped as she presses a kiss on Yaz’s wrist. Just over the pulse point.

Heart pounding, a raging pulse; an inability to think of anything else. She thinks this is called  _ swooning _ . Not that she thought she’d be the type to swoon – but then, she notes, how could she not, with the Doctor being such a gentlewoman?

It’s the tenderness, she knows. For a person who witnesses so much devastation, it is especially warming to see her be so gentle. In the face of everything.

Yaz watches golden blonde hair in the TARDIS light, cascading under the persuasion of gravity. Even at the small inconsequence, a burst of affection blossoms within her, chasing away the remnants of her embarrassment into oblivion. And she is unable to stop the giggle escaping her lips.

‘Feels like I’m a teenager who just got caught by their parents,’ she admits. Never mind the fact that this is her first and only experience of that situation.

She’s actually  _ glad  _ it was Graham and not her own parents to witness it. The questions would be endless otherwise – they’d never leave.

The lips on her wrist recede, leaving her heated skin to react to the air, the change of temperature. She wants it back already, to wrap herself entirely in it, burrow in the Doctor’s warmth.

‘I think Najia would be a lot scarier,’ the Doctor comments.

A look at her face confirms Yaz’s suspicion: wide eyes and a light horror. The immediate hug upon their first meeting makes a whole lot more sense. Of course the Doctor would employ a hug as a weapon of self-defence. ‘Doctor,’ Yaz teases, quick to catalogue her sudden inhale. ‘Are you scared of my mum?’

‘I – well, no, of  _ course  _ not. Why would I be—’ Yaz raises an eyebrow. She is the last person to deny the existence of her mother’s interference. Still, she’ll take this unexpected bonus from it.

Yaz’s heart soars. She’ll be seeing her mum soon.

The Doctor acquiesces, slumping and sighing. ‘Shut up,’ she pouts quietly, much to Yaz’s amusement.

It is such an adorable sight that Yaz falls into the kiss with no small sense of delight.

The fervour of their previous kisses have passed, locked safe in chests inside hearts to come out another time. For now, their pace is languid, a heady slowness delighting in lingering shifts. Echoes of pressure are felt for longer; felt deeper; felt heavier. When they come apart, foreheads touching, Yaz’s head spins with it.

Deep breaths, considering the in and out. For a moment, she pictures the oxygen making its way through her lungs and circulating round her body in her veins. But the image fades, the disappearance out of her control as her mind latches onto a warm nothingness.

A yawn slips out, catching her off guard – though when it ends, she recognises the exhaustion on her shoulders. It embraces; she would be foolish to try and shake it off now, at this time in the supposed morning.

The Doctor straightens up, and Yaz almost falls forward. She catches herself just in time, unnoticed; with a blink, it dispels the persuasive tendrils of sleep grasping at her consciousness.

‘Think it might be time for bed, PC Khan,’ the Doctor suggests gently.

There is a rush of pride at the Doctor using her professional rank – and something else. Her mind is sluggish; it takes that acknowledgement to catch the accidental innuendo.

She doesn’t even need to say it. The Doctor immediately balks at her expression, cheeks turning a furious pink. ‘No – wait – not like – not like  _ that _ . I didn’t mean—’

‘Just teasing,’ Yaz reassures her. She notes the careful relief, her need not to presume. It’s a conversation for another time. ‘Think you’re right, though. I’m pretty tired.’

The day’s events linger at the periphery. Pushed down into silence, still, but that does not mean she has not acknowledged them. They will linger there in her future for as long as possible. They will be waiting for her.

And it has been  _ wonderful  _ to not think of them. The Doctor being in close proximity has quickly become a cure for many temporary ailments; no coldness haunts her when she is chasing warm, pliable lips, an embrace in which to burrow. Through closeness they have been gifted a new freedom.

Something they  _ both  _ have so desperately needed.

‘Sure you don’t need any company? Must get pretty boring, waiting around for us while we sleep.’

It’s easy for her but the Doctor doesn’t sleep. Conscious or not, it is always in the quiet hours that nightmares come to bite. All the day’s misery manifest. There is no way to place an age on the Doctor; all her days must manifest many more nightmares than those around her.

More quiet hours to batter the soul.

More than anything, Yaz wants to help. But she can’t follow the Doctor around like a puppy. Nor would she want to.

These demons are not her own.

‘Boring? Nah,’ the Doctor brushes it off. ‘She’s an old ship. There’s always something to fix.’ Mind elsewhere, she is still matching Yaz’s – albeit slow – pace. They lift off the stairs and cross the console room, hands clutched tight. Accompanied by a calm set of hums and beeps from the TARDIS, the lights in the corridor flicker on in anticipation, then dim just as quickly.

A trail to guide Yaz to rest. In her head, she thanks the ship, and for the first it isn’t even that weird.

Reaching the corridor solidifies her decision, but for a moment she regrets it. Regrets leaving the little bubble of time and space they carved out for themselves. It really seemed endless. Safe. Perfect. Her exhaustion returns in a wave, and her grip on reality suffers a blow. The world dims: sleep has come to take what it was granted, before she was woken from her nightmare.

‘Go on,’ the Doctor encourages her. Hands lift and come apart. ‘Can’t have a tired Yaz.’

Yaz hums, and leans forward to kiss the Doctor’s cheek, basking in the feeling, the joy of possibility and completion. When her eyes flutter open, they remain lidded, heavy under beckoning sleep.

‘Goodnight, Doctor,’ she murmurs.

There’s a promise in tomorrow.

She lets that thought guide her to bed. Rest beckons.

‘Goodnight, Yasmin Khan,’ she hears from behind her.

Half-asleep, she wonders if the Doctor watched after her. She wonders if the Doctor heard the promise too.

Familiar four walls, the wallpaper ocean blue. When she slips off her shoes, her toes are greeted by the plush white carpet, and she allows herself a moment of stillness. The ghosts of tenderness point her fingertips to where she felt the Doctor’s touch: the flat of her top lip, the soft wetness where her bottom lip gives way to the warmth of her mouth. The skin of her jaw, caressed. Her hand falls to rest on her pulse, thrumming patiently through the muscle of her neck, and on her wrist. The memory of the Doctor’s lips linger like perfume.

And she smiles.

Her bed is but a few footsteps away. In a sleepy stupor, she undresses into pyjamas, and crawls under covers. Comfort seeps into her bones like a sigh, and she curls into herself automatically. Dipping into her imagination, a semi-real Doctor lies next to her, and Yaz wonders if she’d sleep; if not, then how much would she fidget, and how much would she think instead?

One day, she might find out. If she leaves her door open. If she keeps an ear out; a gentle reminder.

Consciousness buckles under the temptation of sleep, and she goes under. At first, when she dreams, the Dregs stalk in the distance. But they cannot reach her. In golden smoke they dissipate.

Instead she dreams of purple grasses and a hand to hold.

Yaz’s eyes flutter open in the morning light. For a second, her sleep-addled brain tells her she is back in Sheffield, but the illusion unravels as her sense of place rights itself. No – these are teal sheets, not white. The morning light is synthesised, the TARDIS’ gift.

And yesterday happened.

All of it – the confessions, the embraces. The Dregs. The death.

And today, she will be home.

It does not take long for Yaz to get ready, not when anticipation has hit and hangs her out to dry. Her hands shake at the prospect of the day, of what she will do. She only notices this when she is collecting the previous day’s clothes, from where they are draped on the back of the white wooden chair.

The memory of these repeated actions, only a day before, hits her in a flash. Choosing her outfit, preparing her face. She’d taken in the pattern of the jumpsuit, the flow of the material at the legs, spent half an hour at the mirror to braid her hair. She’d looked at herself in the mirror, and told herself to smile.

How things change, so quickly.

She studies her reflection in the mirror. There is grief in the corners of her mouth, an unconscious downturn visible in the quiet moments. So much she has already seen, but it brings a heavy gratefulness. It’ll show, she knows, from now on. Longer pauses and a deep-set fury. Knowledge of future pain – all the deaths they saw – is the price she has to pay. But she’ll gladly do so.

In her irises, there are hints of hope.

She slept in her braids, and individual hairs are starting to come away. No matter if she is going home, but – her heart jolts – the Doctor will be there. In the console room. She will see the Doctor.

And isn’t it nice, for once, to want to look nice for someone?

She eyes a lone lipstick that has settled out of the way on the corner of the table, last used at a party the four of them couldn’t politely refuse. She wavers in a moment’s hesitation, her heart pounding. Then she grabs it.

She is surprised to find Ryan and Graham already in the console room – usually, it’s Ryan they have to drag out of the ship to start their latest adventure. She clocks their loud silence, and the respectful distances away from the console they stand, and the reality of the situation crashes down on her. Right, yeah. Frustrated distrust, and all that.

She hopes they can talk to the Doctor soon. She hopes the Doctor is ready soon. The prospect of keeping things from either party never boded well for her.

She greets the two of them silently, her smile tempered as usual. Ryan mumbles a response, rubbing at his eyes still. Graham smiles back – a real smile, Yaz is relieved to see – though he can’t  _ quite  _ keep her gaze. Neither, she notices, can he look at the Doctor for more than a couple of seconds at a time.

Yaz has to bury her chuckle under a quiet cough. It’s not successful; Ryan shoots her a confused look.

The Doctor’s eyes have been on Yaz since she walked in, she knows this. It is not hard not to be aware of the Doctor, but especially now. Especially after last night. Even so, the thought causes a swell of pride to rush through her. Finally, she returns the Doctor’s gaze, taking in the curve of her back as the Time Lord leans against the pillar, the easy way she cups the spine of the book in her hand.

‘Good morning,’ the Doctor crows, and Yaz grins back.

She takes the final steps towards where the Doctor stands. She wants to move closer, to run straight into the Doctor’s embrace, but out of respect for Graham’s sensibility and Ryan’s ignorance, she stops a few footsteps away. She settles close to the telepathic circuit instead.

She watched the Doctor falter at the sight of Yaz’s lips; watches the bob of her throat as she swallows – and feels her own stomach flip when she sees the Doctor’s pupils darken. She wishes, suddenly,  _ fervently _ , that Graham and Ryan were not here.

Still. Yaz has to exhale silently. There’s a time for that. Soon, hopefully. Very soon.

The Doctor matches her gaze again, and blushes, guilty, at Yaz’s smug smile. Straightening up, she tosses her book aside in a somewhat sudden movement. Yaz follows its trajectory to where it lands near the honeycomb stairs, as the Doctor defends herself to Graham. Supposedly satisfied, he and Ryan return to their conversation, and the Doctor focuses back on Yaz. ‘Did you sleep okay?’ she asks, all tenderness in her quiet question.

A thousand kinds, Yaz thinks. Then her mind’s eye is assaulted in memories of last night’s slumbers: the glitching drestruction; burnt bodies and prowling Dregs. How she’ll never be rid of them. But, for now, she can banish them, settle herself in the present. ‘Fine, yeah. Thanks.’ Settle herself into thoughts of the Doctor: the fantasy of purple grasses, her unreal hand in gorgeous pink moonlight. She looks back at the Doctor, curious. ‘Did you manage to get up to much while we slept?’

‘Yeah! Lots, actually. Fixed the thermo couplings, re-wired the heating to the rooms and the swimming pool, cleaned the oil filter so it stopped smelling like off-spinach, and I ate thirty and a half custard creams. New record, I think.’

‘Thirty..’ Yaz gasps. Such an impossible woman. Laughing lightly, she shakes her head in disbelief. ‘Right. ‘Course.’ Curiously, she wonders if Time Lords are impervious to diabetes. For the Doctor’s sake, she sincerely hopes that is the case.

They are interrupted by a sound from the other side of the console – Yaz tries not to jump a foot in the air at the sound, scarred as she is by impatient coughs.

‘Alright, alright!’ the Doctor gives in, her pout only visible to Yaz. ‘Sheffield, here we come.’

Then she is off, making a dance out of their journey home. She yanks on this pulley and pushes down that button, the names of which Yaz can only just remember. She re-enacts a pirouette before disengaging the anti-grav stabilisers. For the final pose, a vigorous slam of the brakes. ‘Hold on fam!’ the Doctor shours, and then they are holding on for dear life as the TARDIS spins on its journey to Sheffield.

The Doctor looks wild like this, Yaz thinks. In her element. She’s home.

And so too, is Yaz.

Their world settles and the gong sounds. They’ve landed.  _ Sheffield _ . Her heart soars at the prospect, and she is almost tempted to ollow Ryan and Graham’s hurried exit – but she has something else to do first.

As she sidles up to the Doctor, she notices the sagging position. The stillness.

The Doctor is not very good at being alone.

They need their time in Sheffield, but the Doctor can’t squirrel away to another place to recuperate. Not when grief pushes down on her, its weight an ocean in her lungs. Gallifrey is gone. There is nowhere to hide from that fact.

Maybe she won’t. Not anymore.

Suddenly, Yaz knows exactly where the Doctor is headed next.

And it  _ aches. _

Her hand on a forearm – the Doctor whips around and her face lights up. Supernova brightness; it sticks to the Doctor no matter what, a trace of the stars in her warmth, mixed in with the scent of peppermint and engine oil.

‘Hi,’ she breathes.

‘Hey,’ Yaz answers, her voice lower than intended. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Yeah,’ the Doctor replies. ‘Now I am.’ Hazel eyes are caught by deep red lips; Yaz listens proudly to the way the Doctor’s breath stutters. ‘You’re wearing lipstick.’

Yaz beams. ‘I am, mm—!’ the Doctor surges forward to kiss her, languid like their last kiss. Yaz sinks into it, her shoulders relaxing as her hands grip onto the curve of the Doctor’s hips, and tighten.

Before it becomes less-than-chaste, they slow and pull apart, the feel of the Doctor’s touch still leaving Yaz reeling. But she won’t forget her revelation. She urges the Doctor closer again, wrapping her arms round tightly. Her sigh escapes automatically.

She can feel heartbeats slow down, finding a companionable pace with one another.

‘You’re going back there, aren’t you?’ Yaz wonders.

She feels the Doctor slump in defeat, and waits for her to form the words.

‘Yaz, I have to – I need to find him. I don’t have a choice.’

And she knows. She presses a kiss to the Doctor’s forehead, sinking into the warmth. She lets the Doctor fold into her, and Yaz’s heart aches. ‘Do you want some company? I can come with you, if you like. I wouldn’t mind.’

The Doctor shakes her head. ‘Another time.’

It rings true – this time. There is no standoff, no wounded animal confessing the truth of her beginnings. Yaz can hear the truth in it, and the trust.

A privilege, and a burden. But she’ll share it, absolutely, if it means the Doctor can find some peace. If it means she, and the ghosts she carries, can be heard.

Yaz steps back, her fingers travelling down the Doctor’s arm to curl around the offered palm. ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ she says, a small smile gracing her lips.

It widens when the Doctor lifts her hand to kiss the back of her palm. Ever the gentlewoman. ‘Laters, Yaz.’ She immediately cringes.

Yaz laughs. ‘See you soon, Doctor.’ It’s the lightest she’s ever said that phrase. Not even after the first proper adventure. She lets go of the Doctor in the knowledge that she will return, to her warmth and her comfort, and the hope she has encouraged in Yaz even without intention.

Her first step out onto the Sheffield ground encourages a smile, a heavy happiness, to bloom. Her foot on solid ground – on Earth,  _ her  _ Earth. The second footstep feels just as sweet. Her Earth. Their home. Her heart singing. Orphan 55 will not take this from her. She can place her love inside of this sense of now, where the buildings do not crumble and her family are just that. Blissfully, messily, her family.

A seagull cries overhead, dipping and soaring under the miserable English clouds. She looks upwards, to see the curling complex of Park Hill Estate, green grass and rainbow walls on the grey sides of her home. Her  _ home _ .

Yaz grins. Takes a lungful of air. Home.

‘Mate.’

She jumps – whips her head around to see Ryan leaning against the side of the TARDIS, one foot tapping a slow beat on dull concrete.

‘Oh my God, Ryan,’ Yaz breathes, feeling her heartbeat slow down again. ‘Warn a girl next time.’ As her friend snickers, she looks around, ‘Where’d Graham go?’

Pushing off the TARDIS wood, Ryan explains, ‘He went up ahead. Said I’d catch up. He keeps—’

His words are cut off by the cacophony of the TARDIS’ warble; both of them scramble to get out of the way, letting the sound fill their ears, their minds, until the ship disappears, and they are left squinting up at the grey sky.

Back to Gallifrey, Yaz thinks. The image of the Doctor gazing at the desolation of her planet fills Yaz with dread, but she knows it is her right, and her need.

Besides, she will come back. After that – after everything – they will have each other. And that is enough.

They are left with the rush of wind, the chirping birds, until Ryan turns once again to Yaz. ‘He keeps being proper weird ‘round you two,’ he continues. ‘Dunno what you did but he says it gave him hope.’ Then his face drops. ‘Why – is your lipstick smudged?’

Oh! Her hand comes up to her lips, the memory of the kiss suddenly seared onto her brain. She can’t answer Ryan, can’t do anything except leave.

‘I–I’ll see you later, yeah?’

She turns to the direction of her home, her family; their faces, their silly teases: human and wonderful.

‘What? You didn’t answer the question! Yaz! Mate! Yaz!’

‘Another time!’ she shouts back.

A smile on her face. Unbidden. Absolute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! any comments or kudos are much appreciated! <3

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! comments and kudos are always appreciated if you have the time <3


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